Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

was one of the founding members of the

Non-Aligned Movement The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide. The movement originated in the aftermath o ...

(NAM). The preparatory meeting for the First NAM Conference in Belgrade was held in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

between 5 and 12 June 1961. The first NAM conference was cosponsored between

President of Egypt The president of Egypt is the executive head of state of Egypt and the de facto appointer of the official head of government under the Egyptian Constitution of 2014. Under the various iterations of the Constitution of Egypt following the E ...

Gamal Abdel Nasser and

President of Yugoslavia The president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or the president of the Republic for short, was the head of state of that country from 14 January 1953 to 4 May 1980. Josip Broz Tito was the only person to occupy the office. Tito ...

Josip Broz Tito who sent joint letter to other leaders during their bilateral meeting in Egypt. Cairo hosted the Second Conference in October 1964 attended by forty-seven countries while Egyptian

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

resort

Sharm el-Sheikh Sharm El Sheikh ( ar, شرم الشيخ, ), commonly abbreviated to Sharm, is an Egyptian city on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in South Sinai Governorate, on the coastal strip along the Red Sea. Its population is approximately 53,670 ...

hosted the Fifteenth Conference in 2009. At the time of the Sharm el-Sheikh Conference 118 countries participated in the activities of the movement with some other countries having the observer status. 55 heads of state attended the 2009 conference. Official Egyptian state institutions view the movement as the broadest and the most important framework for

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

to coordinate their stances on issues on the agenda of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

and to act together against unilateral policies.

History

Jawaharlal Nehru’s tour of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1961 (02)

President Gamal Abdel Nasser, together with Josip Broz Tito of

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, Kwame Nkrumah of

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

and Sukarno of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

played the leading role in the early days of the movement. Following the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and president Nasser's

charismatic authority Charismatic authority is a concept of leadership developed by the German sociologist Max Weber. It involves a type of organization or a type of leadership in which authority derives from the charisma of the leader. This stands in contrast to two o ...

in other

Arab countries The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western As ...

other countries in the Arab world followed Egyptian lead in joining the Non-Aligned Movement. After the Camp David Accords some Arab countries and

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

strongly criticized Egypt with Iraqi representatives calling for suspension of Egypt's membership in the NAM. This initiative was opposed by India and Yugoslavia as a matter of principle with Yugoslavia underlining its dissatisfaction with Egyptian failure to ensure earlier Arab common stance for the Camp David negotiations.

References

{{Foreign relations of Egypt Non-Aligned Movement Foreign relations of Egypt

History

See also

References