On August 26, Iran became the chair of the 16th Congress of Non-Aligned Movement at a summit meeting of the NAM that opened yesterday in Tehran. Thousands of participants from the 120 NAM member countries are attending, with heads of state from more than 20 countries in attendance, and top ministers from some 40 other countries. Outside the conference, which is set up along the lines of the United Nations General Assembly, the Iranians placed the wreckage of three cars in which Iranian scientists were killed by terrorists, along with descriptions of how Iran has been a victim of international terrorism. After the first 48 hours, the Iranian media is full of positive coverage since key leaders who were pressured not to attend are in fact there, including UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In another significant development, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, visited Tehran en route to China. It is the first diplomatic visit from Egypt since 1979 when Egypt broke relations with Iran after the Islamic revolution that put Khomeini into power.
Major themes of the conference are announced to be peaceful nuclear development and attempting to end the Syrian civil war. It is the first major diplomatic event since last year's UN General Assembly in which Syria was invited to participate.
According to Middle East media reports, Iran is taking the full opportunity to stress its right to enrich uranium for nuclear energy â a position that the NAM has supported all along. One of the activities for the NAM participants will be a tour of the Bushehr nuclear plant.
Journalists at the U.S. State Department were heckling spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that Ban Ki Moon's attendance proves the "impotence of diplomacy" regarding Syria and Iran.
But in an interview aired on Russia Today, Asia Times reporter Pepe Escobar made the opposite point. "This is the real international community," Escobar said, stressing that the whole world is attending, while it is the U.S., U.K., and EU who are left out.