U.S. foes bash U.S. and U.N at Cuba summit

U.S. foes bash U.S. and U.N at Cuba summit
Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:41 PM ET
By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Developing nations, including Iran, North Korea,
Venezuela and Cuba, moved to forged a anti-U.S. alliance and support
Tehran's right to nuclear technology at a summit of Non-Aligned nations
on Saturday.

More than 50 heads of state and leaders from over 100 developing
countries were debating a document backing Iran's right to nuclear
technology for peaceful ends and another sharply critical of Israel's
recent war in Lebanon.

Leaders took turns at the podium to criticize global poverty, unfair
trade practices and "arbitrary" actions by powerful nations that -- they
complained -- controlled the United Nations.

Governments with friendly ties to Washington, among them India,
Pakistan, Chile, Peru and Colombia, sought to steer the summit way from
confrontation and finger-pointing at the United States.

But North Korea took the opportunity to blast the United States for
unilateral actions against individual countries and called for a
revitalized NAM to raise a united voice.

"The United States is attempting to deprive other countries of even
their legitimate right to peaceful nuclear activities," North Korea's
second-ranking leader, Kim Yong-nam, said.

North Korea, which defied international warnings by test-firing
ballistic missiles in July, will not return to talks on ending its
nuclear programs under growing U.S. sanctions, he said.

Kim, who heads North Korea's parliament, said in a speech that United
States was "abusing the human rights issue" to interfere in the internal
affairs of countries not allied to it.

The 118-nation Non-aligned Movement, or NAM, which groups almost two
thirds of the United Nations members, urged Iran to continue cooperating
with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Tehran has cut back on
short-notice U.N. inspections.

In on concrete result of the summit, nuclear-armed neighbors India and
Pakistan agreed to resume formal peace negotiations that were frozen
after the July train bombings in Mumbai.

The agreement came after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the fringes of the summit.

New Delhi had said the carnage in Mumbai that killed 186 people on July
11 was engineered by a Pakistan-based group of Islamic militants.

CASTRO MISSES SUMMIT

Cuban President Fidel Castro, a symbol of opposition to Washington, was
supposed to preside over the summit but was too ill to attend. He
received U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a dressing gown in his
hospital room.

The 80-year-old communist leader, who took power in a revolution in
1959, ceded power temporarily to his brother Raul Castro on July 31
after undergoing surgery to stop intestinal bleeding.

Raul, 75, the world's longest serving defense minister who lacks his
brother oratorical skills, has shed his military uniform for a business
suit to host the summit and read brief speeches.

Washington blasted Raul Castro as a "military dictator" on Friday and
pressed the country to hold a referendum on a transition to democracy.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, with his penchant for banter and
controversy, looks the natural heir to Castro, his friend and ally, as a
leading U.S. opponent.

Other countries called for moderation at the summit.

A Colombian delegate said moderate nations had tried to soften the
anti-U.S. content of the summit's final statement.

The summit brings together some states impatient with what they see as a
U.S.-dominated United Nations and eager to strengthen the NAM as an
alternative, and foster cooperation within the Third World.

"The United States is turning the Security Council into a platform for
imposing its policies. ... We should reinforce NAM and it should play
its role more efficiently," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told
the summit on Friday.

Critics say NAM is a relic of the Cold War that has lost its way in the
decades since it was founded by nations that wanted to assert their
independence from both Washington and Moscow.

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