India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin has said that India's engagement and outreach at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, is unprecedented. Set to begin next week, Akbaruddin said that PM Modi's visit to the world organisation will result in a concrete, tangible, action-oriented outcomes. 

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'Unprecedented engagement'

Akbaruddin, while briefing reporters at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN on India's priorities and engagements at the United Nations during the high-level session on September 19 said that the extent of India's outreach at the General Assembly this year is unprecedented.

He said a total of over 75 Heads of State and Foreign Ministers will be meeting with Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan during the week across various platforms. These meetings will not be pull-asides or brush-asides but would be events where either the Prime Minister and his counterparts or the External Affairs Minister and his counterparts will engage in the same room, discussing substantive issues for at least 30 minutes. 

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"And that's what I call when I say that the breadth is unprecedented. We have never, ever had this sort of engagement of this intensity during the General Assembly session with such a broad number of countries," Akbaruddin said. 

"In past engagements at the UN, we've had plurilateral meetings like the G4 or BRICS at the Ministerial level, but never have we had this engagement of India and a group of countries together, wanting to work collectively with India," he said adding that all the engagements are very action-oriented.

He underscored that there is a willingness of a large group of countries to engage with India together. PM Modi, who will be addressing the General Debate for the first time in five years, has a packed bilateral and multilateral agenda beginning September 23 till September 27.

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(Inputs from PTI)