Special Envoy of President to lead Sri Lanka delegation to 17th NAM Summit

Special Envoy of President Maithripala Sirisena and Minister of Skills Development and Vocational Training Mahinda Samarasinghe will lead the Sri Lanka delegation to the 17th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) being held from 13-18 September in Margarita Island, Venezuela.

In addition to the summit, Minister Samarasinghe will also represent Sri Lanka at the ministerial segment to be held from 15-16 September. The Sri Lanka Ambassador to Venezuela, resident in Havana, and senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs participated at the preceding Senior Officials Meeting from 13-14 September. At the Summit, Venezuela will take over the chairmanship of the movement from Iran and the summit is being held under the theme ‘Peace, Sovereignty and Solidarity for Development’. The summit is expected to deliberate on issues such as current political developments, UN reform, terrorism, threats to international peace and security, UN peacekeeping, sustainable development, climate change, socio-economic development, south-south cooperation, refugees and migrants, and disarmament.

The Non-Aligned Movement consists of 120 countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe, and was formed in 1961. Sri Lanka is a founder member of the movement and hosted the 5th NAM Summit in Colombo in 1976.