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United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II plans to address UN General Assembly

United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II plans to address UN General Assembly

Queen Elizabeth II.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Ali Treki today welcomed the announcement from Buckingham Palace that Queen Elizabeth II will visit United Nations Headquarters in New York in July.

The British monarch is slated to address the 192-member General Assembly on 6 July for the first time in over 50 years.

The spokesperson for the Secretary-General said that Mr. Ban “looks forward to receiving Her Majesty personally on this historic occasion,” in a statement issued today.

The head of State of the United Kingdom and 15 other UN Member States, the Queen has addressed the General Assembly only once before, in 1957.

“The President of the General Assembly is very happy for this visit,” his spokesperson Jean-Victor Nkolo told the UN News Centre, noting that the confirmation comes on the heels of Mr. Treki’s own trip last week to London, when he met with the UK’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband and its Minister for Europe Baroness Kinnock.

“The President of the General Assembly hopes the Queen will throw her weight and support behind the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] and other important issues on the agenda of the General Assembly,” said Mr. Nkolo.