Non-Aligned Movement calls for lifting unilateral economic sanctions

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) called for the lifting of unilateral economic sanctions, Sunday. This came in a statement adopted at a ministerial meeting in Caracas, in which the speakers criticised US policy toward Venezuela, Iran, and Syria.

The NAM, a movement founded at the height of the Cold War in Belgrade in 1961, stressed its rejection of unilateralism as an instrument to impose a foreign policy. The statement read:

Unilateral measures adopted by some countries that could erode and violate the Charter of the United Nations, international law and human rights; in accordance with the Caracas Political Declaration.

Thus, the declaration called for the complete and immediate “cancellation of the sanctions”.

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The declaration did not explicitly refer to the US economic sanctions against Venezuela, Iran or Cuba. However, the foreign ministers of the three states, as mentioned above, have sharply criticised the measures taken against their countries.

Venezuela, which holds the rotating presidency of the NAM since 2016, is also subject to the sanctions imposed by the US administration.

The ministerial meeting in Caracas was an opportunity to prepare for the Non-Aligned Movement Summit scheduled for next October in Baku, where Azerbaijan will be the next country to chair the movement.