Uganda praises Iran for resistance against West

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni hailed Iran for its resistance against Western pressures and insistence on its right to peaceful nuclear energy.

“We know what is happening in Iran, too much pressure from the West, but we are glad that you can manage,” Museveni told visiting Iranian Minister of Communication and Information Technology Reza Taqipour in Kampala on Sunday.

He added that Uganda supports all countries trying to acquire nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Taqipour, for his part, said Iran has been able to depend on itself despite sanctions by Western powers.

At the end of the meeting, Taqipour extended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s invitation to his Ugandan counterpart to attend the NAM summit due this summer in the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Iran will host the 16th summit of the NAM member states between August 26 and 31.

The Islamic Republic will assume the rotating presidency of the movement for three years during the Tehran summit.

NAM, an international organization with 120 member states and 17 observer countries, is considered as not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.

The organization was founded in the former Yugoslavia in 1961. The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the UN members and contain 55% of the world population.

NAM's purpose, as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979, is to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries.”