MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UN General Assembly special session to pay tribute to Nestor Kirchner

The ceremony counted with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

With the staring participation of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations' Assembly held a special session Monday to pay tribute to former Argentina president and UNASUR Secretary General, Néstor Carlos Kirchner, who passed away on October 27, reported Argentine ambassador to the UN Jorge Argüello.

The homage session was chaired by former Switzerland president, and current head of the UN's General assembly, Joseph Deiss, and was promoted by Ecuador's former foreign minister Francisco Carrión as the South American country currently chairs the South American Nation's Union (UNASUR) bloc.

Besides, Ban Ki-moon, Deiss, and Carrión, the presidents of the five regional groups that represent the UN's 192 country-members paid homage to Kirchner.

Thus the representatives of India (on behalf of Asia), Mali (Africa); Finland (on behalf of Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zeland); Czech Republic (Eastern Europe); while Uruguay represented Latin America and the Caribbean.

Likewise, the representatives of Egypt, whose country chairs the no-aligned countries bloc, and Yemen (head of the G77 + China bloc) said some words in the memory of the demised leader.

Argüello said that “we are in front of a special an unusual UN event that obviously indicates how important Néstor Kirchner was for the cultivation of multilateralism”, and added, ”It's still fresh in the memory of the international community the highly important role that Kirchner played early this year during the tensions raised between Venezuela and Colombia, as well the recent heated defence of democracy he made before the failed coup in Ecuador”.