Syria’s Assad invited to NAM summit in Tehran

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has invited his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad to participate in the 16th head-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran late August, Fars News Agency reported.

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.

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."