Ban to travel to Canada and Turkey for talks on development, Somalia

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will travel to Ottawa on Wednesday to discuss a range of global issues with the Canadian leadership, including progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), followed by a visit to Turkey next week for a high-level gathering on Somalia.

Mr. Ban will meet with Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Governor General Michaelle Jean, international cooperation minister Beverley Oda and finance minister Jim Flaherty, the spokesperson for the Secretary-General said today.

Other issues on the agenda include the forthcoming summit in New York to review the progress towards the achievement of the MDGs, eight development targets which United Nations Member States have pledged to achieve by 2015, as well as the UN’s support for Haiti, and the situations in Sudan and Afghanistan.

The Secretary-General and senior Canadian Government officials will also discuss the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, currently under way in New York, and have an opportunity to exchange views on the upcoming summits of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations and the Group of 20 (G20) industrialized and developing economies.

Then next week Mr. Ban will travel to Istanbul, where the UN and the Turkish Government are scheduled to co-host a high-level international conference on Somalia on 22 May.

The conference is intended to advance Somalia’s peace process which aims to foster political stability, security and reconstruction in the conflict-ravaged Horn of Africa country. It will also explore measures to strengthen efforts to combat rampant sea piracy off the Somali coast.