BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati left Saturday morning to New York where he is scheduled to meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and other officials as part of the 66th meeting of the General Assembly.

Mikati is also set to attend the General Assembly and preside over a Security Council session where he will give a speech focusing on developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the uprisings in the Arab region where protesters have been calling for democracy and basic human rights.

The prime minister’s four-day visit, which will also include meetings with foreign and Arab officials, comes a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas submitted a request that the U.N. recognize a Palestinian state.

The U.N. Security Council will meet Monday afternoon to discuss the request. Lebanon currently holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council throughout September.

Ban has to examine the application before referring it to the Security Council. Action on the membership request could take weeks, if not months.

On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly met with Mikati at the Grand Serail where the ambassador consulted Mikati about Lebanon’s presidency of the Security Council as well as his trip to New York.

According to a statement released by the embassy, Connelly highlighted important areas of continued military cooperation between the two countries as well as Lebanon’s initiatives to implement its obligations under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.

The question of 1701 was reportedly brought up during a meeting between Ban and Sleiman over the weekend. Bann asked Sleiman about Lebanon’s failure to implement UNSCR 1559, which stipulates the disarmament of all militias in the country.

Sleiman reportedly responded to Ban by saying that 1559 is directly related to UNSCR 1701 and that when Israel fully implements the latter, Lebanon would then see that resolution 1559 is fully implemented.