Azeri President to Attend NAM Summit in Tehran

The announcement was made by Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he and other foreign ministers of NAM member states are attending a meeting to prepare the agenda for the upcoming Tehran summit. "We are planning for Ilham Aliyev's participation in the summit," Mammadyarov told FNA. The NAM ministerial meeting started in Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday with the presence of some 120 member countries along with 28 prominent guest countries and prominent international organizations. Tehran will host the 16th NAM summit meeting late in August. Iran has the rotating presidency of the Movement for three years. NAM, which has 118 member states, is an international organization of states considering themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. NAM is the largest grouping of countries outside of the United Nations. NAM member states represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations' members and comprise 55% of the world population, particularly countries considered to be developing or part of the Third World. The movement is largely the brainchild of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, former President of Egypt Jamal Abdul Nasser, and former Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito. It was founded in April 1955 and has 118 members. The purpose of the organization as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979 is to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."