Iran will host the 16th Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran from 26 to 31 August, 2012. The Islamic Republic, during the summit, will also assume the presidency of the movement for three years.
India – which is one of the founder states – will be represented by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the External Affairs Minister, S. M. Krishna. Besides attending the summit, Singh is expected to have bilateral meetings with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
The summit will take place at a time when the U.S. is pressing India to reduce its oil imports from Iran, and implement sanctions over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.
NAM, founded in 1961 in former Yugoslavia, is an international organization whose members are considered as not formally aligned with any major power bloc. Its purpose, as stated by Fidel Castro in the Havana Declaration of 1979, is to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries.” As of 2012, the organization has 120 member states and 20 observer nations.
The summits take place approximately every three years. The last Non-Alignment Movement Summit was held at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, in July 2009.
Gateway House staff wrote an Op-Ed on the implications and the importance of the Non-Aligned Movement, published a few days ahead of the summit. You can read the Op-Ed here.