India bids for NAM summit

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, NOV. 12. India is believed to be the front-runner among various candidates to host the summit of the non-aligned nations early next year.

The Foreign Office here is tight-lipped on the state of play within the NAM on choosing the host country. Diplomatic sources, however, suggest there is a reasonable prospect that New Delhi may be the eventual choice for the summit. A final decision on the venue for the summit is likely to be made at a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Non- aligned movement(NAM) in New York later this week, the sources added.

The abrupt move by the newly-elected government in Bangladesh led by Ms. Khaleda Zia to back away from the commitment to host the summit has put the choice of venue right on top of the NAM Foreign Ministers meeting beginning Wednesday.

The External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, who travelled to the United States with the Prime Minister, has stayed back in New York to attend the ministerial meeting.

Iran and Malaysia have also offered to hold the meeting in their capitals, the sources said. South Africa is the current chairman of the NAM. And now it is the turn of Asia to hold the summit.

Hosting the summit in India after a gap of nearly two decades is likely to be quite popular here, political observers say. The Congress and other Opposition parties are likely to welcome India devoting some diplomatic energy towards its traditional constituency in the NAM.

In recent years, India's emphasis was on building relations with the United States and other major powers, and renewed activism within NAM could give a sense of balance to India's foreign policy.

Expressing his personal views, Mr. K. Natwar Singh, who heads the international affairs department of the Congress, said it is ``entirely appropriate for India'' to step in at a critical moment in NAM affairs.

Mr. Singh, then a senior official of the foreign office, was actively involved in organising the 1983 NAM summit in New Delhi. Then, as it might now, the NAM chose India to host a meeting that was originally scheduled to be held in Baghdad. The Iraq-Iran war at that time made the movement look for an alternative capital.

There will be huge organisational problems in hosting the NAM summit at a time when the threat of international terrorism looms large and security requirements for heads of state have become much more expansive.

But the real challenge for India, or any other host nation, will be to breathe new life into the non-aligned movement and make it relevant to the times.

Considerable international skepticism, some of it within the NAM itself, will have to be overcome in whipping up political enthusiasm for the summit. But there is no shortage of big issues, like international terrorism, on which the movement can make a large political contribution at this moment.

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