Kim-Trump Summit: United Nations to lift travel ban for North Korean officials

Trump earlier said the fate of the summit will be decided next week as his aides travelled to Singapore to prepare the meeting and push for certain conditions to be met.

International News : A UN Security Council committee has agreed to lift a travel ban on North Korean officials heading to Singapore for the planned summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un next month, diplomats said.

Singapore last week asked the sanctions committee to grant an exemption to the North Korean delegation attending the June 12 summit and taking part in preparatory meetings, according to the request seen by AFP.

“This summit will serve as an opportunity to advance the objective of a peaceful resolution of the DPRK nuclear issue and the establishment of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the region,” wrote Singapore’s UN Ambassador Burhan Gafoor to the committee.

The letter did not specify the size of the delegation from Pyongyang. The UN sanctions blacklist for North Korea has 80 individuals and 75 entities which are subject to a global travel ban and an assets freeze. The request for the blanket exemption to the global travel plan was approved on Thursday after none of the council members raised objections.

Trump earlier said the fate of the summit will be decided next week as his aides travelled to Singapore to prepare the meeting and push for certain conditions to be met.

“There are certain conditions we want to happen. I think we’ll get those conditions. And if we don’t, we won’t have the meeting,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. The Security Council has imposed tough sanctions on North Korea that ban trade in commodities and severely restrict deliveries of oil vital to Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programme.

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Tharoor-Swaraj's war of words in LS over making Hindi official UN language

Tharoor questioned the need to push it while the Minister called his remark “ignorant”.

 

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor traded barbs in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday over making Hindi an official language at the United Nations.

Tharoor questioned the need to push it while the Minister called his remark “ignorant”.

Sushma Swaraj, in her reply to a question, said: “It is often asked why Hindi is not an official language in the UN. Today, I will want to tell the House, the biggest problem is the procedure.”

The Minister explained that as per the procedure, two-thirds of the 193 members of the organisation — which comes to 129 — will have to vote in favour of making Hindi an official language and also share the financial expenditure that would be incurred in the process.

“The problem comes when apart from voting, the burden of the amount also falls on them. Economically weaker countries that support us shy away from this. We are working on it, we are making attempts to get support of countries like Fiji, Mauritius, Surinam… where people of Indian origin are there.

“When we get that kind of support and they are also ready to bear the financial burden, it will become an official language,” she said.

When a member pointed out that making Hindi an official language will require an expenditure of Rs 40 crore every year, Sushma Swaraj said: “Not just Rs 40 crore, the government is ready to spend Rs 400 crore on it.”

She, however, added that spending money would not serve the purpose.

Sushma Swaraj also highlighted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and she had spoken at the UN in Hindi.

“Even when we have (foreign) guests, if they speak in English, we speak in English. If they speak in their own language, we speak in Hindi. As far as glory of the language is concerned, the External Affairs Ministry never had so much work done in Hindi as now,” she said.

Tharoor, who worked in the UN and announced his retirement after finishing second in the 2006 election for UN Secretary-General, questioned the need to push for Hindi, which he pointed out was not even the national language of India.

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