Participants in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial held in Kampala, Uganda on October 15 and 16 renewed calls for multilateralism and reforms in global governance and underlined the need for increased cooperation among the countries in the Global South.
Participants also expressed their collective opposition to hegemonic policies adopted by certain countries and demanded equal opportunities of development for all the countries irrespective of their economic, cultural and political differences.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a note published on Thursday, October 16 reiterated his country’s steadfast dedication “to the construction of an authentically multipolar world order wherein prosperity is equitably distributed, aggression systematically curtailed, and sovereignty universally upheld as the cornerstone of international relations.”
Araghchi’s piece was published in Tehran Times, a leading English daily in Iran and was titled “Non-Aligned Movement in a shifting global landscape: reflections ahead of Kampala ministerial”.
Araghchi claimed that Iran expects that NAM members, apart from reiterating their support to Palestine, would also explicitly express their opposition to continued Israeli occupation in the Middle East and collectively demand its definitive end.
Araghchi said that his country welcomes the “initiatives aimed at halting the ongoing genocide in Gaza.” However, the ceasefire “offers tentative respite following catastrophic humanitarian losses” in the last two years.
“Zionist expansionism, coupled with the Israeli regime’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, remains the fundamental source of regional destabilization and insecurity,” Araghchi underlined.
Iran emphasizes that the “imperative of meaningful accountability mechanisms and the definitive termination of occupation” is necessary for establishing genuine peace and justice in Palestine and in the entire region.
Collective opposition to coercive sanctions
Araghchi hoped that based on its legacy of opposing hegemonic measures the NAM would be categorical in its condemnation of all kinds of unilateral coercive measures and recognize them as flagrant violations of international law.
Iran, he argued, has remained committed to its categorical opposition to all forms of coercive sanctions because they “flagrantly violate sovereignty and contravene international law.”
Referring to recent invocation of “snapback” sanctions by the European powers under the US backing, Araghchi reiterated Iran’s opposition to such “instrumentalization” of the UN Security Council to “reimpose sanctions against the Iranian nation.” He called the move a “fundamental breach of multilateral commitments and the spirit of international cooperation.”
Unilateral “sanctions-more accurately characterized as ‘economic terrorism’-have significantly impeded development trajectories across the Global South,” he noted.
Araghchi, however, asserted that such unilateral sanctions should be converted into “opportunities for resilience” by the countries in the Global South, through strengthened cooperation among themselves.
He asserted that NAM’s agenda of authentic multipolarity and equitable global governance through reforms in the UN and other Bretton Woods institutions has become most relevant in the present global context where the world is witnessing “intensifying economic rivalries among major players” and strategic unpredictability among major European powers and the US.
Noting how “NAM represents the world’s demographic and moral majority” and “offers a genuine democratic alternative to exclusive self selecting clubs such as the G7,” Araghchi called for collective positions and enhanced cooperation among its members on international forums and issues.
Based on the Afro-Asian conference in Bandung (Indonesia) in 1955, NAM was established in Belgrade in 1961 as a movement against the Cold War polarization and rivalries. It now has around 120 member countries mostly from Africa, Asia and Latin America with Uganda being its present head.
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