India warns against Pakistan's attempts to disrupt Non-Aligned Movement

UNITED NATIONS: Calling out Pakistan's attempts to disrupt the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), India has warned that it will slide to irrelevance and be shut out of global decision-making if attempts were made to divide it by venting bilateral grievances.

"If we take up issues that divide rather than unite us, reducing our movement to a platform for venting bilateral grievances or for embarrassing fellow Members, we will soon become a weak and irrelevant entity, with no say at all in global decision making," India's Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan told the virtual Ministerial Meeting of the NAM on Friday.

Theme of the meeting commemorating the 65th anniversary of the adoption of the movement's founding principles was "More Relevant, United and Effective NAM against Emerging Global Challenges, including COVID-19", but Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi raised the Kashmir issue.

Muraleedharan did not mention Quereshi or Pakistan by name but it was clear to whom his message against divisiveness and raising of irrelevant issues was directed.

"Individual members must stop and think before raising issues that are not on the agenda and which find no resonance in the wider membership. NAM never was and never can be a platform for pursuits aimed at undermining the territorial integrity of a State by another State."

The second of the 10 founding principles of NAM is "respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations", he added.

On the meeting's pressing issue of dealing with the Covid-19 crisis and rebuilding the world in its destructive wake, he said: "NAM's unique tradition of promoting South-South cooperation can provide a way out as societies look to rebuild and regenerate in the wake of this crisis."

He recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi's assurance at the UN General Assembly last month that "India's immense vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used to help all humanity in fighting the crisis".

But the world was also facing the threat of terrorism and other imminent dangers, Muraleedharan said.

Terrorism and its "enablers continue to spread their tentacles unabated", he said in a message also directed against Islamabad. (IANS)

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