President Nikos Christodoulides on Saturday departed Athens for New York ahead of the United Nations’ “high-level week”, where he and representatives of every other UN member state will address the UN general assembly.

His contacts will begin on Sunday evening, when he will meet with the heads of Greek diaspora associations to discuss developments on the Cyprus problem, before on Monday, he will meet Jordanian King Abdullah II.

Later on the same day, he will attend a summit co-organised by European Council President Antonio Costa and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the subjects of multilateralism, international law, peace and prosperity.

On Tuesday, he will attend the opening of the general assembly’s plenary session, where UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will commence proceedings.

The day’s second speaker will be Bangladeshi diplomat Khalilur Rahman, the elected general assembly president, who beat Cyprus’ Andreas Kakouris by 99 votes to 91 to accede to the role, with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva the first to speak, as is tradition.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be the fourth head of state to address the general assembly that day.

Christodoulides to meet Holguin on Tuesday evening

On Tuesday afternoon, Christodoulides will meet Chevron’s base assets and emerging countries chairman Javier La Rosa. He will then meet UN Cyprus problem envoy Maria Angela Holguin at 6pm Tuesday evening local time, 1am Wednesday morning Cyprus time.

He will then give his own address to the general assembly on Wednesday, at around 12.30pm local time, 7.30pm Cyprus time, before participating in a “high-level summit” organised by Guterres on the issue of climate change, and then meeting American multinational oil corporation ExxonMobil’s vice president John Ardill.

On Thursday, he will attend a working breakfast organised by Greek media company the Antenna Group and American international affairs think tank the Atlantic Council, with discussions to centre on the topic of “consolidating cooperation between the European Union and the gulf for regional security and prosperity”.

Following the working breakfast, he will meet Guterres at 10.55am local time, 5.55pm Cyprus time, before hosting a meal for representatives of the five permanent members of the UN security council, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Then, on Friday morning, he will meet Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, before holding a separate meeting with representatives of the American Jewish Committee.

His final engagement in New York will be to attend a meal organised in his honour by Cypriot diaspora organisations, before he will return to Cyprus next Saturday evening.