New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit New York next month to attend the United Nations' Summit of the Future on September 22-23 that is likely to host several world leaders, people familiar with the matter told news agency PTI on Wednesday. The Prime Minister last embarked on a historic state visit to the United States in June last year, holding meetings with US President Joe Biden and other members of the leadership.
PM Modi is also likely to address an Indian community event in New York besides holding talks with a number of world leaders on the sidelines of the Summit, as per the sources. The UN Summit will bring leaders from various countries to forge a new international consensus on how to deliver a "better present and safeguard the future", according to the bloc.
"Effective global cooperation is increasingly critical to our survival but difficult to achieve in an atmosphere of mistrust, using outdated structures that no longer reflect today’s political and economic realities. The Summit of the Future is a chance to get back on track," read a UN statement on the event. "It will consider how we cooperate both to achieve agreed goals and to tackle emerging threats and opportunities."
Quad Summit in US?
The prime minister may also attend the UN General Assembly, although there is no official announcement on Modi's visit to New York yet. Meanwhile, there have been speculations that the Quad summit, which is supposed to take place in India this year, may now take place in New York on the sidelines of the Summit of the Future.
Earlier, India put off holding the Quad Summit in January this year as Biden declined an invitation to visit New Delhi as the chief guest of the Republic Day parade due to domestic concerns, and also because it was improbable to expect that the 81-year-old President would travel twice to India in the same month during a re-election year. The dates for the Quad Summit have not been announced, but it was rumoured that they will take place after the US elections in November.
The US Presidential elections and constraints of a tight calender of the leaders of the grouping may force it to look at having the Summit at a venue that is convenient to all, said a person familiar with the matter. The foreign ministers of the Quad member nations held wide-ranging talks last month in Tokyo with a focus on boosting overall cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
The Quad is a grouping of countries driven by shared interests and values and interested in strengthening a rules-based order in the strategically important Indo-Pacific region. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended last year's summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 20, along with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida and Biden. PM Modi had last year asserted the importance of consolidating Quad’s constructive agenda and delivering tangible outcomes for the region. He also invited Quad leaders to India in 2024.
(with PTI inputs)
