President Al-Asad Invited to Iran for NAM Summit

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was invited by Iran to participate in the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran late August.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invited Assad to visit Tehran and attend the NAM Summit.

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.”