Tuesday, September 12 2006 16:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Havana: Cuban President Fidel Castro's participation in the 14th summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) remained in doubt even after the summit's first day came to a close. The host country's 80-year-old leader is recovering from intestinal surgery six weeks ago. Castro was expected to welcome UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to Havana, but there was no clear word about his participation in summit meetings. Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno said Monday that he did not know if Castro would attend official sessions. Castro temporarily ceded power July 31 to his long-time deputy and brother, Raul. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque opened the summit Monday, urging participants to 'close ranks' in defence of fellow member countries, arguing that the NAM is now 'more necessary than ever'. "The risks, threats and difficulties that we face are similar and have common origins," he said.

"We must show the world our strength, our ability to face together the enormous challenges that a world that is led by the most powerful imposes upon us," he said. Perez Roque criticised the recent war between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and decried what he called 'daily genocide' against the Palestinian people. "Our summit also coincides with a strengthening of the pressures on Iran for exercising its sovereign right to develop a peaceful programme for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and when other non-aligned countries are being threatened with pre-emptive wars and aggressions," Perez Roque said. Cuba assumes a three-year chairmanship of NAM, taking over from Malaysia. NAM, formed in 1961, has 116 member countries and serves as a political, economic and cultural mouthpiece for poor and developing countries. In its heyday, NAM was led by post-war giants such as Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, all of whom sought to avoid clearly taking sides with the US or Soviet Union during the Cold War.