Havana: Iran and Venezuela looked to cement an anti-US alliance at the summit of Non-Aligned nations on Saturday in the face of resistance from countries that have backed Washington since the September 11 attacks.
More than 40 heads of state and government and leaders from countries including North Korea were set to agree to a document supporting Iran's right to nuclear technology and another sharply critical of Israel's recent war in Lebanon.
The summit brings together some states impatient with what they see as a US-dominated UN and eager to strengthen the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), as an alternative.
"The US 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.
Cuban President Fidel Castro, a symbol of opposition to Washington, was supposed to preside over the summit but was too ill to participate.
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 falling ill and undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding.
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 will likely address the summit again on Saturday. With his penchant for banter and controversy, he looks the natural heir to Castro, his friend and ally, as a leading US opponent.
Critics say NAM is a relic of the Cold War that has lost its way in the decades since it was set up by nations that wanted to assert their independence from both Washington and Moscow.
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