UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expanded next week's Africa visit to Sudan's Darfur region and Somalia to include stops in Europe.
His spokeswoman, Michele Montas, told reporters Thursday he will be participating in the International Conference on Support for reconstruction and development of Lebanon, a conference that will be hosted in Paris by President Jacques Chirac.
Beirut is expected to present a new economic reform program which would include post-conflict reconstruction as well as economic recovery and reforms, to address Lebanon's debt sustainability problem and restore the foundations for sustained growth, she said.
However, the new secretary-general's first stop, before the Paris conference, will be Brussels, where he will meet with officials of the European Commission and the head of the European Parliament, as well as the king and prime minister of Belgium, according to Montas.
After his European visits Ban was expected to first stop in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the United Nations' largest peacekeeping operation is based.
The secretary-general said he will meet with peacekeepers and express his personal gratitude for the contributions they are making under difficult and often dangerous conditions, in a country that is key to the future stability of the region.
He will then head to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to attend the African Union summit where he has said Darfur and Somalia will be at the top of his agenda, Montas said.
His last stop in Africa will be Nairobi, Kenya, where he will meet with staff at U.N. Africa Headquarters, she added.
