Pranab to attend IRC Foreign Ministers' summit

New Delhi, Oct 23: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will leave today for Harbin in China to attend the India-Russia-China (IRC) Foreign Minister(FM) level conference.

Mukherjee, accompanied by senior officials of the External Affairs Ministry, will hold discussions on regional and international issues, with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.

On October 24, the three Foreign Ministers are expected to discuss regional and international issues and expansion of trilateral cooperation, an External Affairs Ministry release said.

This will be the third stand-alone trilateral Foreign Ministers' meeting after the last one in New Delhi on February 14, 2007 and the first one in Vladivostok on June 2, 2005.

The three foreign ministers have also met on the sidelines of multilateral forums in September 2002, September 2003, October 2004 and September 2005.

UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi is also expected to leave for Beijing on Wednesday.

ANI>