KOFI Annan is to take part in next year's Robert Burns celebrations in New York, it was announced yesterday.
The secretary general of the United Nations has agreed to deliver the inaugural Robert Burns memorial lecture at a dinner next year in aid of British Executive Service Overseas, a voluntary organisation set up to help the third world.
Mr Annan's involvement was announced yesterday, the 205th anniversary of the poet's death.
Iain McConnell, director of BESO Scotland, said Burns would have approved of the project.
He said: ''His vision of the brotherhood of man is more appropriate today than ever and this new lecture will enable us to focus on the progress we have made since Burns's time.''
The lecture was devised to provide a platform for an annual tribute by an international statesman in memory of the bard and his vision.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador to the UN, said: ''The Robert Burns memorial lecture is a very appropriate way of marking the vision of a man whose message is still so very relevant today.''
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