The 18th Non Aligned Movement (NAM) summit begins on Friday in Baku, Azerbaijan with heads of state and government of different countries attending the event. At the event, the Venezuelan President delivered the opening remarks at the inaugural session of the summit.
Ahead of the summit, the Indian Vice President Venkaiah Naidu met the leaders of Iran, Nepal and Bangladesh. Naidu is leading the Indian delegation to the NAM summit in Azerbaijan.
He was earlier received by the Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev upon his arrival at the summit.
The Indian Vice President interacted with the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the summit.
The Vice President, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu interacting with the President of #Iran, Mr. Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the #NAMSummit in #Baku, #Azerbaijan today. #NAM #NonAlignedMovement pic.twitter.com/pF64CbQo2u
— VicePresidentOfIndia (@VPSecretariat) October 25, 2019
The theme of summit is ‘Upholding the Bandung Principles to ensure concerted and adequate response to the challenges of the contemporary world.’
The other world leaders who joined the summit included Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammed, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Djibouti President Ismail Omar, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo- Addo, Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic, Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, Pakistani President Arif Alvi, Indian Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj.
India is the founding member of the one of the largest gathering of the world leaders, NAM. In 1955, the principles of NAM were set at Bandung, Indonesia. Six years later, the forum emerged formally in 1961 in Belgrade of Yugoslavia with initiatives of the then Indian Prime Minister Jawahar lal Nehru and Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito.
The Indian Vice President’s visit to the summit is expected to further strengthen the relations with the NAM member countries.