Deleted tweet from UN General Assembly President Peter Thomson.



The President of the United Nations General Assembly Peter Thomson has made a diplomatic faux pas when he mistook the name of India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan in a post on Twitter.

Thomson tweeted about Swaraj’s speech at the General Debate of the 71st UN General Assembly in New York but he wrongly identified her as “Ms. Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Foreign Affairs of #India”.

The tweet was published around Tuesday midnight, Singapore time (27 September), and was later deleted. Thomson sent out another tweet to correctly reflect Swaraj’s name.



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Photo of Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan: United Nations



Balakrishnan also attended the session on Monday (26 September) and addressed the UN General Assembly in a speech entitled “Small States in an Uncertain World”.

