By IANS,
Tehran : Iran Sunday urged the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member states to support its membership at the UN Security Council, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki made the appeal during the 15th expert meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement which began here Sunday morning.
Mottaki said Iran has forwarded its nomination to the UN Security Council for obtaining its non-permanent membership for the year 2009-10 and Tehran wanted the NAM member countries to support the bid.
In his speech, Mottaki said that Tehran considered the NAM as an international movement “advocating freedom, peace, justice, independence, progress and refraining from war, aggression, and unilateralism”.
The foreign minister called on the member states to forge solidarity and maintain thier strong standing if they wanted to face the challenges ahead.
“The NAM states are faced with big challenges in the areas of peace, security, economic development, social progress, and rule of law,” he said, adding that the NAM countries needed to be united to fight such challenges.
Over the past several years during which violence resulting from war on Iraq and Palestine has reached its climax and when unilateralism adopted by certain big powers has faced the international community with serious crisis, focus on the NAM aspirations is needed more than any other time, the foreign minister added.
Addressing the meeting, Iran’s newly appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Hosseini also praised the NAM for keeping its independent stance, despite major changes in the world order.
He hailed the NAM’s support for Iran’s nuclear programme, which sparked a standoff between the country and the West.
Supporting Iran’s nuclear endeavour, NAM countries have issued several statements in the past concerning the issue at international venues, most notably at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors’ meetings.