Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi plans to participate in the forthcoming Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Tehran in late August, an Egyptian presidential source says.
Morsi made the decision "out of anxiousness to represent Egypt in international events,” the source told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Thursday.
In a meeting with Morsi in Cairo on August 8, Iran's Vice President Hamid Baqaei submitted the official invitation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his Egyptian counterpart to take part in the 16th NAM summit in Tehran.
In a telephone conversation last month, President Ahmadinejad personally invited his Egyptian counterpart to attend the NAM summit, slated to be held in the Iranian capital on August 26-31.
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei will address the Tehran NAM summit.
The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also expected to partake in the event during which the Islamic Republic will assume the rotating presidency of the movement for three years.
NAM, an international organization with 120 member states and 21 observer countries, is considered as not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.
NAM's purpose, as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979, is to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries.”
Iran severed ties with Egypt after Cairo signed the 1978 Camp David Accords with the Israeli regime and offered asylum to Iran's deposed monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
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