Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh is attending the two-day 16 th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which opened in Tehran , Iran on August 30.

Themed “Lasting Peace Through Joint Global Governance”, the Summit brought together 40 heads of states or governments, and foreign ministers from 120 NAM member countries and representatives from more than 30 countries and international organisations.

In the context that the world is challenged by complicated developments, NAM proves to continue being the most important and strongest assembled forces of developing countries to safeguard their interests in the process of establishing a favourable environment for peace, stability and development in the absence of imposition, injustice and violence, NAM member countries said.

FM Minh is scheduled to deliver a speech at a plenary debate on August 31.

On the sidelines of the Summit , he met with the Cambodian and Bhutanese Prime Ministers, the foreign ministers of Indonesia , Singapore , Mongolia , Ghana , Mauritius , Senegal , Bolivia and Belarus , and the Minister of Presidential Office of Mozambique and the Secretary of State of the United Arab Emirates to talk about cooperation at multilateral forums and bilateral ties.

Earlier on August 28-29, Head of the Vietnamese delegation to the UN, Ambassador Le Hoai Trung attended a NAM ministerial meeting, where he asserted that Vietnam is an active and responsible member of ASEAN and NAM .

Trung highlighted NAM ’s efforts to ensure peace, national independence and development to contribute greatly to addressing major issues facing the world.

He also raised Vietnam’s stance on handling disputes in the East Sea, saying that these disputes should be solved peacefully basing on fundamental principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

In this spirit, the Vietnamese representative also affirmed the importance of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), the adoption of the Guidance implementing the DOC in 2011, as well as the early conclusion of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).-VNA