RIYADH: Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah will leave for Tehran today to attend the 16th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit amid mounting pressure from Western nations and the Gulf bloc on Iran over its nuclear program, said Alauddin A. Al-Askary, deputy foreign minister for protocol affairs, in Riyadh yesterday. Prince Abdul Aziz and his accompanying delegation will also attend the ministerial meeting of the NAM member states to be held on Thursday in the Iranian capital.
The summit’s agenda is rich in political contents. It was not immediately clear whether regional organizations like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) or the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) would share any common plan or agenda with the NAM as a bloc.
According to reports, OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu will be attending the NAM summit. “The GCC General Secretariat will not be represented at the summit,” said GCC spokesman Saleem S. A. Al-Alwi. He, however, pointed out that almost all Gulf states would send their delegations to Tehran to attend the summit and preparatory meetings preceding the summit-level talks. The NAM foreign ministers, including the foreign ministers of the GCC, will arrive in Tehran on Monday and Tuesday.
The NAM’s heads of state will travel on Wednesday to the Iranian capital. About 100 countries will partake of NAM’s Tehran summit, with about 50 states attending at a high level. On the visit of Prince Abdul Aziz as a special envoy of King Abdullah to Tehran, Al-Askary said the meeting of NAM foreign ministers on Aug. 28-29 would set the final agenda of the summit-level meeting. Al-Askary could not provide details about any bilateral or multilateral meetings to be attended by the prince on the sidelines of the NAM summit.
Apart from Saudi Arabia, other GCC member states that have announced their participation are the UAE and Kuwait. The former will send Sheikh Saud bin Rashid Al-Mualla, a member of the UAE’s Supreme Council and ruler of Umm Al-Quwain Emirate, while the latter will be represented by Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Kuwait. A number of officials and experts from the six Gulf states have already arrived in Tehran.
These experts and officials, including the foreign secretaries of the 120-member NAM, have begun preparing the ground work for NAM’s stand on major international issues and promotion of multilateral cooperation. Issues likely to be deliberated include the impact of international sanctions on Iran, developments in Syria, Palestine and Israel, reforms of the United Nations, and promotion of South-South cooperation.
Food security, energy situation, and sustainable development are other key issues that could be taken up for discussions. The issue of security and stability in Afghanistan is also likely to figure in the talks.
The NAM summit, during which Iran will assume the rotating presidency of the movement for three years from Egypt, will also be attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “The conference provides a break for Iran from international isolation over its disputed nuclear program and a chance for the movement to get some unaccustomed attention,” said a Riyadh-based diplomat who preferred anonymity. He said that several heads of state and a large number of diplomats would visit Tehran to attend the event. They include Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
The formal opening ceremony of the summit will be held on Aug. 30 at the Summit Convention Center. “The summit comes as the UN and the West have increased sanctions on Iran over its controversial nuclear program — one that Western nations and GCC states believe Iran is using to develop atomic weapons,” added the diplomat.
Iran has formally invited King Abdullah to take part in the NAM summit.
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