India committed to revitalisation of UN, new Ambassador Harish assures Guterres

United Nations, Sep 10 : Assuring Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of India’s commitment to revitalising the global organisation, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish presented his credentials to take over as the Permanent Representative.

Ambassador Harish hit the ground running, making the case before the Security Council soon after the ceremony on Monday for major troop-contributing countries to be actively involved in the decision-making process of peacekeeping operations.

Earlier, prepping for the assignment ahead which takes off with the summit starting on September 22 with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s participation, he had made a round of consultations with several diplomats on cooperating on issues that India shared with their countries.

In posts on X after presenting his credentials, Harish wrote that he and Guterres “agreed on the need to strengthen and reform multilateralism in both its political and economic dimensions to deal with contemporary challenges and harness new opportunities”.

He added that he assured him of India’s commitment under PM Modi’s “leadership to reformed multilateralism and revitalisation of the UN”.

Harish met with Philemon Yang, who will become the president of the General Assembly this month. He assured the former prime minister of Cameroon of India’s support in his new role.

Coming from his latest assignment as the ambassador to Germany, Harish brings 34 years of diplomatic experience having represented India from Southeast Asia through the Middle East and Europe to the US.

He has special expertise in the issue currently consuming the UN, Gaza, as he served as India’s representative to the Palestine Authority based in Gaza City and had also been deputed to work for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine.

His assignments included ambassador to Vietnam and postings in Houston, Riyadh, and Cairo, where he studied Arabic.

Harish started at the UN on Thursday with a floral tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at his statue on the UN campus.

He followed that with meetings with General Assembly President Dennis Francis and Amandeep Singh Gill, the secretary-general’s envoy on technology.

Francis posted on X that he was “grateful for India's continued support throughout my presidency”.

The next day, India’s mission said he discussed “Special Strategic and Global Partnership” with Yamazaki Kazuyuki, the permanent representative of Japan, a member of G4, the group that advocates for expanding the Security Council’s permanent membership.

He met Sergio Franca, the permanent representative of another G4 member, Brazil, who took over the presidency of the G20 group from India last year.

Osama Abdelkhalek, the permanent representative of Egypt which has a role in the Gaza peace process, also had a meeting with Harish and they “agreed to work closely in the UN”, according to an Indian Mission post on X.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)