Travel

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Madam Ban Soon-taek arrived in Johannesburg in the late afternoon of Tuesday, 24 February, on his first official visit to South Africa.

On Saturday, 28 February, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.  He was welcomed at the Kisangani airport by Congolese provincial and national officials in the presence of the senior leadership of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Madam Ban Soon-taek arrived at Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport in the evening of Saturday, 31 January.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, accompanied by Madam Ban Soon‑taek, arrived in Madrid in the morning of Tuesday, 27 January.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, accompanied by Madam Ban Soon‑taek, arrived in Davos from Madrid in the early evening of Wednesday, 28 January.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon departed Kuwait for Israel, via Jordan, early in the morning of Tuesday, 20 January.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew from Tel Aviv to Ankara, the Turkish capital, on Friday afternoon, 16 January.

On Sunday, 18 January, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon travelled from Beirut, Lebanon, to Damascus, capital of Syria.  He was greeted at the airport by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem.

In January 2009, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set off on a mission to the Middle East that was intended to send a simple and unmistakable message about the crisis in Gaza and southern Israel:  that the fighting must stop, and that Security Council resolution 1860 must be fully respected and implemented.  He visited and met with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Kuwait.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Kuwait from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in the evening of Sunday, 18 January.  He went immediately to the inauguration ceremony of the new United Nations House, which was donated to the United Nations by the Kuwaiti Government.