Fiji To Attend NAM Meeting As New Member

August 10, 2012 11;23 AM

SUVA, Aug 10 (Bernama) -- Fijian Foreign Affairs Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, will lead a delegation to the upcoming Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit meeting in Tehran, Iran on Aug 30-31, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

Fiji joined NAM last year as its 120th member and through this membership the island nation has now enhanced its relations with the other 119 member countries of the NAM.

According to the Fijian authorities on Friday, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama will not be attending the NAM Summit.

Prior to the meeting, which will look at ways to revitalise and strengthen the movement and to reinforce its position on priority issues to developing countries, Kubuabola will attend the NAM Ministerial meeting on Aug 28-29.

The NAM, founded in Belgrade in 1961 by leaders then Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia, is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formlly with or against any major power bloc. As of 2012, the movement had 120 members and 21 observer countries.

The NAM countries represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations's members and contain 55 percent of the world population. Membership is particularly concenrated in countries considered to be developing or part of the Third World of which Fiji is considererd, Xinhua quoted a local media's report.

-- BERNAMA