The Permanent Mission of Nepal to the United Nations (UN) in New York is set to assume the Group of the Asia- Pacific States in New York for the month of September 2017.

White announcing this arrangement at the Group's monthly meeting in New York, this chair for August, Ambassador Martene Moses, Permanent Representative of Nauru, extended thanks to the delegation of Nepal for accepting the responsibility for September month in NY, and assured of her delegation's full cooperation, read a statement issued by Nepal’s Permanent Mission to UN.

On behalf of the group, she also extended heartfelt condolences on the death and suffering caused by recent floods Nepal.

On the occasion, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nepal to UN, Durga Prasad Bhattarai, , on behalf of the Government of Nepal, expressed gratitude for the condolences expressed by  the chair and other friends of Nepal on the deaths and damage Nepal sustained during Monsoon induced floods and landslides in recent weeks. He welcomed the opportunity as an honour for the delegation to serve the Group as its chair. He assured that utmost will be done to carry out the responsibility in a professional manner and expressed the confidence that his delegation will receive the invaluable support and cooperation from all delegations in the Group's work.

This is the first time that Nepal will be chairing the Group since September 2012.

The work of the chair involves communication and coordination among the Group members between the Group and the UN on candidature matters, representation of the Group in special events at the UN, and convening of a monthly meeting to consider and decide on various candidatures members to various elected positions within the UN System.

All elected positions in the UN System are distributed among Member States on the basis of thier respective geographical regions. For that purpose, countries are currently arranged under five regional groups, of which Asia-Pacific is the largest comprising 55 states. The other groups Europe, Latin American and the Caribbean, and the Western European and other countries.