DUSHANBE, August 30, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- Tajik President Emomali Rahmon is currently in Tehran, Iran to attend the 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

According to the president’s official website, Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi, State Adviser to the President for Foreign Policy Erkin Rahmatulloyev and some other high-ranking Tajik state officials are accompanying Emomali Rahmon on this trip.

The 16th Nonaligned summit kicked off on August 26 and is lasting till August 31.     

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states considering themselves not aligned formally with or against any major power bloc.  As of 2012, the movement had 120 members and 21 observer countries.

The organization was founded in Belgrade in 1961, and was largely the brainchild of Yugoslavia''s president, Josip Broz Tito, India''s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt''s second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghana''s first president Kwame Nkrumah, and Indonesia''s first president, Sukarno.  All five leaders were prominent advocates of a middle course for states in the Developing World between the Western and Eastern blocs in the Cold War.  The phrase itself was first used to represent the doctrine by Indian diplomat and statesman V.K. Krishna Menon in 1953, at the United Nations.