MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will pay an official visit to Russia on May 16-19 and will hold talks with Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“This will be his [Ban Ki-moon’s] sixth visit to Russia with the previous one paid in April of 2011,” the ministry said.
The UN secretary general will meet with Foreign Minister Lavrov on May 17 to discuss key international issues, including the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, and particularly the Syrian crisis and developments on the Korean peninsula, the ministry said.
The ministry also said it hoped the UN secretary general will discuss social and economic aspects of the United Nations activities and plans for organization’s development after 2015.
According to Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky, last week the UN secretary general spoke by telephone separately with Russia’s Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry thanking them for their initiative to organize an international conference on Syria.
