Dr. Khalilur Rahman to take oath as president today

The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) officially begins Tuesday (September 8) where Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dr. Khalilur Rahman will assume the presidency of the session.

He will take the oath of office at around 9:00 PM Bangladesh time. The high-level general debate will begin on September 22 with speeches by heads of state and government.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday morning that Dr. Khalilur Rahman will take the oath as president at 9:00 PM Bangladesh time following a media briefing. At 1:00 AM, he will chair the first plenary meeting of the 81st General Assembly session.

Earlier, on June 2, representatives of UN member states elected him president of the 81st UNGA session through a secret ballot at the UN headquarters in New York.

In the election, he defeated Andreas S. Kakouris, special envoy of the Foreign Minister of Cyprus, by a margin of eight votes. In 1986, Bangladesh’s former foreign secretary and politician Humayun Rashid Choudhury served as president of the 41st session of the UNGA.

After four decades, another Bangladeshi diplomat is set to take on the important responsibility of presiding over the UN General Assembly, the world’s largest multilateral forum.

-MT