UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrives in Sofia, Bulgaria, for talks with government officials and to attend a conference on regional politics. Photo by EPA/BGNES
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is arriving in Bulgaria Wednesday for the first leg of a three-country European tour.
Ban will meet with Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov, the Mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova, as well as the country's Speaker of Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, and other legislators, according to information released by his spokesperson earlier this week.
While in the Bulgarian capital Ban will address the Sofia Platform, a conference bringing together politicians, NGOs, journalists and experts to discuss the experiences of Central and Eastern Europe since 1989 and this year's developments in North Africa and the Middle East.
He is also scheduled to address students and NGO representatives at the University of Sofia.
The Secretary-General then travels to Turkey to open the fourth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDCs), a five-day event starting on 9 May in Istanbul in which the world's most economically vulnerable countries will discuss how to strengthen their economies and reduce poverty.
The conference is being attended by several other top UN officials as well as many heads of State and government.
Ban's final stop of the trip will be in Geneva, where he will open the third session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction and the second International Forum on Sport for Peace and Development.
Ban Ki-moon has a long-running diplomatic career, starting with his first job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea in 1970, shortly after university graduation. In 1980 he begins working for the UN in Seoul. Before being appointed Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki-moon was Foreign Affairs Minister of South Korea (2004 – 2006).