Ahmadinejad invites Bouteflika to NAM summit

Iranian vice president and special envoy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohammed Reda Mir Taj Eldin, said Thursday that Tehran was keen to strengthen bilateral relations with Algeria. Taj Eldin said in a press statement after a meeting with Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika that the meeting focused on “current developments on the international and regional arena," citing the "mutual vision" between the two countries on developing bilateral relations in various fields. The Iranian official, who started his four-day visit to Algeria on Wednesday, declared that he handed to President Bouteflika an official invitation to participate in the next summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that will be held in Tehran in next September. Algeria is among the founders of the NAM bloc of countries. Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci also met Eldin during his visit. The Iranian vice president said upon his arrival in Algiers that he would tackle topics of common interest. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major international power bloc. As of 2011, the movement had 120 members and 17 observer countries. The organisation was founded in Belgrade in 1961, and was largely the brainchild of the then-leaders of Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia. All five were prominent advocates of a middle course for states in the developing world between the Western and Eastern blocs in the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, the bloc has tried to re-assert its ambit and work towards developmental sustainability, territorial integrity and advocacy of human rights.