Sushma Swaraj at UN General Assembly, to attend India-US-Japan meet amid rising threat from North Korea, China

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New York: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, along with a high-powered Indian delegation, will hold nearly 20 bilateral and trilateral meetings with world leaders in the United States over the next seven days.

The minister is expected to attend a trilateral meet with Japanese and American counterparts Taro Kono and Rex Tillerson respectively. The meet comes amid rising nuclear threats of North Korea who fired a ballistic missile over Japan for the second time on September 15 within a span of a month.

It also comes amid China extending its power and influence in the region.

Swaraj, who arrived in New York on Monday, will represent India at the 72nd UN General Assembly (UNGA). She is expected to rake the issues of terrorism, people-centric migration, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar, UN reforms, climate change, and other peace-keeping issues in the United Nation General Assembly.

On the sidelines of UNGA, she will also attend a meeting chaired by United States President Donald Trump to discuss terrorism.

The minister is scheduled to have a series of meetings on Monday including that with Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics and her Bolivian counterpart Fernando Huanacuni Mamani.

India is among the 120 countries who have supported the reform efforts of the UN Secretary-General.

Syed Akbaruddin, the Indian Ambassador to the United Nations, in an interaction with Indian reporters ruled out a bilateral meeting between Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart.

However, the two leaders are likely to see each other during several multilateral meetings including that of SAARC and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Swaraj will address the UNGA on September 23.

With PTI, ANI Inputs