Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar will lead Malaysia’s delegation to the Ministerial Meeting of the Friends of the Helsinki Process in Helsinki, Finland, on 9 September.
Malaysian Foreign Minister will be accompanied by his ministry’s senior officials to the meeting to be co-chaired by Finland and Tanzania, Wisma Putra , reported Malaysian national news agency Bernama.
The meeting is expected to come up with practical recommendations to address issues of global concerns with the involvement of multi-stakeholders, namely the government, civil society and the private sector.
A Statement of the Friends of the Helsinki Process is expected to be adopted at the end of the one-day meeting to be attended by 13 countries, including Algeria, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Hungary, India, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, Thailand and Britain.
The Helsinki Process, a joint initiative by the Finland and Tanzanian governments, was launched during a conference on problems of global governance and future of North-South relations in December 2002 in the Finnish capital.
“Malaysia’s participation is a manifestation of the importance attached to North-South dialogue in overcoming global problems in an inter-related world,” it said.
The statement also said Syed Hamid would leave for New York on Saturday to join Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi at the 60th Session of the United Nations General Assembly which would open on Sept 13.
Highlight of the session is the High Level Plenary Meeting on the reform of the world body.
The minister is also scheduled to chair a number of meetings involving foreign ministers in Malaysia’s capacity as the Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and Asean.
Syed Hamid will also attend other meetings involving Foreign Ministers of the Group of Fifteen (G-15), the Group of Seventy Seven (G-77) and the Commonwealth.
He is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with a number of his counterparts during his stay in New York.
