Pahor is scheduled to hold a separate meeting with Guterres as well as with Fiji's Peter Thomson, president of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, the president's office said.

It announced that Pahor and Guterres would discuss migrations and refugees, preventive diplomacy, UN reform and current security issues with a focus on the wider Middle East, Ukraine and the Western Balkans.

Pahor elaborated on Sunday that he wished to talk above all about efforts to stabilise the Western Balkans, including the Slovenia and Croatia-initiated Brdo Process, which will see Slovenia host another meeting of leaders from the region in a few weeks.

He said Slovenia's reconciliation efforts were strengthening its reputation. "What is more, we are considered a very safe country and I know our interlocutors are very much interested in how we've achieved this," Pahor said as he began his visit to New York.

Pahor described Guterres as somebody who will work hard toward the goals set, especially for peaceful conflict resolution.

He hopes the UN "will modernise as soon as possible under his leadership", or else it runs the risk of seeing its "authority undermined by unpredictable global security and political processes".

Pahor began his visit on Sunday by decorating a US Coast Guard team that took part in the rescue operation on a cargo ship operated by a Slovenia-based shipping company.

Slovenia became a full member of the UN on 22 May 1992. The date is considered a major milestone in Slovenian history, as the country's sovereignty was formally recognised and it became an equal member of the international community after declaring independence in June 1991.

For this reason, the day is observed as the Day of Slovenian Diplomacy and an open house day will be organised at the Foreign Ministry today.

Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec wrote for today's Delo that the worrying withdrawing of a number of countries from international mechanisms and favouring of unilateral action and bilateral managing of relations "is a process that poses a challenge for the UN".

Erjavec argued the world needed a strong, effective as well as reformed world organisation that would be able to "deal effectively with security challenges and crises and form united and effective answers of the international community".

Slovenia presided over the UN Security Council in 1998 and 1999 when it was represented in New York by Danilo Türk, who later became an assistant to Secretary General Kofi Annan and served a term as Slovenian president. Türk unsuccessfully ran for UN secretary general last year.

Currently, Slovenia is member of the UN Human Rights Council, the UNESCO Executive Board, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors and the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The country focuses on human rights, conflict prevention and mediation, the responsibility to protect concept, sustainable development and the environment, the Foreign Ministry wrote.