Imran's UNGA speech rescheduled to align with Pak's prime time slot

United Nations, Sep 25 (IANS) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was scheduled to speak in the sixth slot of the Friday afternoon session at the UN General Assembly Debate has now been moved up to the morning session that generally aligns with late evening prime time for Pakistan's target audience.

Pakistan now speaks at the 14th slot on Friday, which was pencilled in for the Czech Republic. The shift was announced early Friday morning EST.

Friday has a total of 18 speakers in the morning session and 19 in the evening session.

If Pakistan had stayed at the sixth slot in the afternoon schedule on Friday, Imran Khan's speech would have aired around 2am in Pakistan.

Earlier this week, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi criticised the UN asserting that the Kashmir issue was among its "most glaring and long-standing failures" and that the organisation was being "derided as a 'talk shop'"

"The people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir still await fulfillment of the commitment made to them by the United Nations to grant them their right to self-determination," Qureshi said.

India slammed Pakistan for bringing up the Kashmir issue. Vidisha Maitra, a First Secretary at India's UN mission, said on Monday, "If there is an item that is unfinished on the agenda of the UN, it is that of tackling the scourge of terrorism."

"Pakistan is a country which is a globally recognised epicentre of terrorism, which by its own admission harbours and trains terrorists and hails them as martyrs, and consistently persecutes its ethnic and religious minorities," she said.

On Saturday, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the first speaker in the morning session that begins at 9 am.