Special Envoy of President Maithripala Sirisena, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Skills Development and Vocational Training will lead the Sri Lanka delegation to the 17th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) being held from 13-18 September in Margarita Island, Venezuela. This will be the second time that the Prime Minister of India will not be representing the country at the Summit.
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Ahead of the meeting, the NAM’s Coordinating Committee held its last session on September 11 at the United Nations headquarters in NY, chaired by Iran, to make arrangements for the Margarita summit.
The summit, which was planned to take place past year, is expected to tackle current issues of concern such as terrorism, United Nations reform, climate change and nuclear disarmament, according to media reports.
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India, one of the founding members of the Movement, hosted the 7th NAM Summit in 1983 in New Delhi.
United Nations peacekeeping operations, climate change, sustainable development, economic governance, south-south cooperation, refugees and migrants, and nuclear disarmament will also be discussed, the statement said.
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) considers the unilateral sanctions a “violation of global law, including the United Nations Charter and the basic principles of worldwide law of relations between states”. As of now, the group has 120 members, 17 observer states and 10 observer organizations. All these issues are of relevance in the context of the discussions that will take place at the United Nations in coming months.
The summit will be held in the island of Margarita, located off the state of Nueva Esparta and representatives from 120 members countries would gather there, Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. The Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Ms. Delcy Rodriguez, had led a high level delegation to India last month when she had personally extended the invitation for India to attend the NAM Summit.
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In addition to the Summit, Minister Samarasinghe will also represent Sri Lanka at the Ministerial segment to be held from 15-16 September 2016.
