UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Tehran to attend the 16th NAM Summit

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Tehran to attend the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and confer with the Iranian officials on different regional and international developments.The UN chief left New York on Tuesday and arrived at Mehrabad international airport in the Iranian capital on Wednesday morning. Earlier on Tuesday, Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said that the secretary general will hold talks with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a number of Iranian lawmakers during his visit to Iran.On August 22, Nesirky announced the UN chief’s decision to partake in the summit despite strong opposition from the US and Israel.On the same day, The New York Times wrote that Ban’s decision to attend the summit is further proof of the failure of US and Israeli policies to isolate Iran.“The American-Israeli campaign” against Iran “is not resonating in much of the world,” the daily said, adding that Ban’s participation in the summit “reinforced Iran’s contention that a reordering of powers is underway in the Middle East where Western influence is waning.”NAM is an international organization with 120 member states that is not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. Nearly two-thirds of the countries of the UN are also NAM members.Over 100 countries have sent representatives to the NAM summit, which kicked off with an expert-level meeting in the Iranian capital on Sunday.The meeting of heads of state and government opens on Thursday with an inaugural speech by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution.