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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 29, 2002

NAM Seeks Stronger Partnership with G77 & China: Mbeki

South African President Thabo Mbeki said Sunday in Durban, South Africa, that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) should enhance its partnership with G77 and China. The challenge ahead of the NAM is to find ways and means to strengthen its capacity for united action, responding creatively and expeditiously to the issues facing the Movement and the developing world.


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President Thabo Mbeki said Sunday in Durban, South Africa, that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) should enhance its partnership with G77 and China.

Mbeki, who is also the NAM chairman, made the statement at the opening session of the NAM Ministerial Meeting to commemorate the NAM's 40th anniversary in Durban, which were attended by delegates from 115 member countries and observers from some other countries including China and South Korea.

"We also have to prepare ourselves thoroughly for the upcoming international processes such as the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in August/September this year, the new round of World Trade Organization negotiations and the World Summit on Information Society in 2003, the South African president said.

Mbeki stressed that the developing world should utilize South-South cooperation mechanism to underpin the solidarity and regional coherence of developing countries to become a united vehicle for international cooperation for development.



Partnership with G77 and China
Furthermore, he added, "to build on the unity we have achieved, we should enhance our partnership with the G77 and China. In this regard, it is clear that the interaction and synchronization of ideas between the NAM and the G77 and China, through the Joint Coordinating Committee in New York, have proved to be highly effective in helping to determine the agenda and outcome of the Millennium Summit."

Consequently, he said, the challenge ahead of the NAM is to find ways and means to strengthen its capacity for united action, responding creatively and expeditiously to the issues facing the Movement and the developing world.

"NAM mechanisms such as the NAM Troika and Coordinating Bureau should be strengthened and utilized to achieve the Movement's objectives in multilateral cooperation on the basis of the agreed positions of the members," he added.

He said that developing concrete programs of action and new mechanisms will enable them to meet the challenges of a dynamically evolving world.

NAM's basic principle
Talking about the NAM's 40th anniversary, the president said "This occasion gives us the opportunity to recall the principles of the movement that have guided us well through the decades, evaluate our achievements and focus on the role of the NAM in a new century and a changing global environment.

He said another basic principle of non-alignment is self-determination. The struggle for national liberation was one of the ideals that inspired the formation of the movement.

In this regard, the success of the movement in the liberation of Southern Africa should serve as a further motivation for the movement to address the outstanding issues of foreign occupation and foreign domination.

"I need not remind you that our brothers and sisters in Palestine are still fighting the scourge of (foreign) occupation. Our movement must not relent in its support for a just and lasting solution to this conflict. In the true spirit of non-alignment therefore, the path to enduring peace must be taken through dialogue rather than acts of occupation or terrorism," he noted

Mbeki's statement was echoed by six member countries representing Africa, Asia Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Katele Kalumba, foreign minister from the Republic of Zambia, said at the meeting that the African group has come to Durban to reaffirm its commitment to the founding principles of the Non-Aligned Movement, "which we consider to be as valid this time as when they were adopted 40 years ago.

He said that prominent among these principles is the principle of sovereignty integrity and the mutual equality of states, adding "I cherish this particular principle because it is based on the firm foundation of the nation state that we all represent."




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