60th Anniversary Additional Commemorative Non-Aligned Meeting

60th Anniversary Additional Commemorative Non-Aligned Meeting
Додатни комеморативни сусрет Покрета несврстаних на 60. годишњицу оснивања / Dodatni komemorativni susret Pokreta nesvrstanih na 60. godišnjicu osnivanja (Serbian)
60th Anniversary Additional Commemorative Non-Aligned Meeting; Додатни комеморативни сусрет Покрета несврстаних на 60. годишњицу оснивања / Dodatni komemorativni susret Pokreta nesvrstanih na 60. godišnjicu osnivanja (Serbian)
	the Belgrade Fair was selected as an adequately large event venue in the Covid pandemic context
Host country	Serbia
Date	October 11, 2021 – October 12, 2021
Venue(s)	Belgrade Fair
Cities	Belgrade
Chair	Aleksandar Vučić and Ilham Aliyev; (President of Serbia and President of Azerbaijan)

60th Anniversary Additional Commemorative Non-Aligned Meeting is the 11–12 October 2021 Non-Aligned Movement commemorative meeting taking place in Belgrade, Serbia.^[3] The meeting was organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, and cohosted with Azerbaijan, in commemoration to the 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.^[4]^[5]^[6] President Ilham Aliyev made opening speech in a video format.^[7] Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Nikola Selaković underlined that his county's strategic and essential goal is membership in the European Union, but that Serbia will not give up on its traditional friends which are not only Russia or China but all member states of the Non-Aligned Movement.^[8] While reflecting on historical achievements Indian representative Meenakshi Lekhi invited honest introspection if movement is to keep its relevance and called unnamed member states to avoid insistence on divisive issues and bilateral score-settling which make NAM increasingly ineffective.^[9] Participants vocally decried the disparity in vaccine access between developed and developing countries.^[10]

Participants

The event took place at the Belgrade Fair with attendees including President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo,^[11] Abd al-Hakim (son of Gamal Abdel Nasser), 40 ministers of foreign affairs (including for the first time Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov not as a guest but an observer).^[1]^[12] Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres stressed that the event is taking place in the situation of exceptional global challenges.^[13]

Delegation of Cyprus, one of the founding members and one of only a couple of former European members, was notably absent with Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus avoiding to comment the Radio Free Europe quest and with media implying it was result of country's poor relations with cohost county of Azerbaijan.^[14]

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu was invited as a special guest.^[15] Turkish diplomat Volkan Bozkır was previously president of Seventy-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Nikola Selaković described the event as the largest diplomatic gathering in Europe taking place during the Covid pandemic expecting to bring together 550 attendees from 105 countries and 11 organisations.^[16]

Delegates

Members

Observers

Bosnia and Herzegovina; Milorad Dodik^[35]
Croatia; Zdenko Lucić^[36]
Russia; Sergey Lavrov^[35]
Serbia; host of the meeting with multiple official representatives involved.

Guests

Events and initiatives

The City of Belgrade prolonged the opening hours of various services (restricted due to pandemic) to welcome numerous foreign guests.^[38] President of the Seventy-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly hosted the sidelines Meeting of Women Heads of Delegations and Ministers of Foreign Affairs at the UN House in Belgrade.^[25] Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia Retno Marsudi highlighted the Indonesian nomination of the Archive of the First NAM Conference to the Memory of the World program of UNESCO.^[26] Saint Kitts and Nevis and Burkina Faso signed a formal diplomatic relations and visa waiver agreement at the margins of the meeting.^[21] During the meeting with Riyad al-Maliki President of Serbia Vučić reiterated that his country will not move its embassy to Jerusalem as it was planned in the 2020 Washington Agreement.^[39]

Criticism

The event was criticized by University of Graz professor Florian Bieber as an outlived unprincipled autocrats gathering in service of Serbian president policy agenda.^[40] The President of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani who said that Belgrade is abusing the Non-Aligned Movement to distort the truth about Kosovo and called Serbia a colonizer country.^[41] The head of the Serbian Government's Office for Kosovo Petar Petković answered that Osmani's criticism are motivated by her anxiety arising from the loss of international support.^[41]