World press review on the forthcoming Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Iran (August 23, 2012)

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations decided to attend

the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran next week.

The New York Times published an article "U.N. Visit Will Set Back a Push

to Isolate Iran" explaining the meaning of this visit.

"Mr. Ban’s decision to attend the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement,

announced by his spokesman, Martin Nesirky, came despite objections

from both the Americans and Israelis, including a phone call from

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. It was announced a few

days after the new president of Egypt, a country that has long been

estranged from Iran, said he would attend the summit meeting as well,

a decision that had already unsettled the Israelis," the

newspaper writes.

“The extraordinary effort that the Iranian leaders have put into the

summit is intended to showcase Iran’s global role and offer concrete

evidence that the U.S. policy of isolating Iran has failed,” the

newspaper quotes Farideh Farhi, an independent Iranian scholar at the

University of Hawaii. “A case is being made that it is not the ‘global

community’ that has problems with the Islamic republic, as repeatedly

asserted by U.S. officials, but merely a U.S.-led-and-pressured

coalition of countries,” she said. “And ironically the Obama

administration is conceding the point by trying to pressure various

leaders not to attend the meeting.”

Martin Nesirky, the spokesman of Ban Ki-moon, says that Mr. Ban

expected to meet with senior Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Ali

Khamenei. To boycott the invitation from Iran,  Nesirky said, “would

be a missed opportunity,” the New York Times cites his words.