Former South African president Nelson Mandela is to attend the unveiling next week of his statue opposite the British parliament, London Mayor Ken Livingstone said Friday.
The wraps will be taken off the statue next Wednesday and will see the likeness of the 89-year-old Nobel laureate stand alongside the figures of former British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli.
A statue of former South African prime minister, politician and military officer Jan Smuts also stands nearby.
Livingstone said in a statement that putting the statue in Parliament Square reflected Mandela's place as a world statesman and as "one of the key political figures of our time".
"There can be no better way for this statue to be unveiled than with Nelson Mandela himself present," he said.
"Nelson Mandela's struggle against apartheid symbolised both the fight against racist tyranny and the universal struggle for human rights.
"The statue underlines the warm friendship between Nelson Mandela and the people of London."
Mandela's spokesman said in the same statement that the former president was "honoured" at the tribute and would be accompanied by his wife, Graca Michel.
Also present will be Wendy Woods, the widow of journalist and anti-apartheid campaigner Donald Woods, who died in 2001 and whose idea it was to have the statue in Parliament Square, as well as film director Sir Richard Attenborough.
The statue, by sculptor Ian Walters, is nine-feet (2.7-metres) high and faces the Houses of Parliament. Walters sculpted another statue of Mandela which currently stands on the south bank of the River Thames.
In his autobiography "A Long Walk to Freedom", Mandela recalled a visit to London with his fellow anti-Apartheid campaigner Oliver Tambo.
"When we saw the statue of General Smuts near Westminster Abbey, Oliver and I joked that perhaps someday there would be a statue of us in its stead," he wrote.
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