Margarita Island, Venezuela.-Cuban President Raul Castro met on Sunday with Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari, as part of bilateral meetings parallel to the agenda of the 17th Summit of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

During the meeting, the two heads of delegations highlighted the fraternal friendship and cooperation that unite their peoples and governments.

The meeting was an opportunity to review common stances on the challenges that Venezuela will lead over the coming three years as the NAM president. During the high-level sessions that will conclude today with the adoption of the Margarita Declaration, the Cuban president and Ansari have emphasized the need for joint efforts to defend the founding principles of that international body.

The Cuban president said that Non-Aligned means to struggle for radically change the international economic order imposed by the big powers.

For his part, Ansari proposed to establish a mechanism to fight terrorism effectively, one of the most outrageous sources of human rights violations.

The world leaders who attended the United Nations summit in 2005 called for an urgent reform of the UN Security Council, as part of efforts to make that international body capable of confronting the 21st century, Ansari warned regarding the coming UN agenda.

The 17th NAM Summit began on Tuesday, September 13, with technical meetings. Participants drew up a 907-paragraph document containing key issues such as the defense of peace, sovereignty and solidarity for development.

Founded in 1961, the NAM is a political organization that brings together 120 countries. It is currently the second major organization in size and importance after the United Nations.

Venezuela assumes for the first time its command and becomes the third country in Latin America to do so, after Cuba and Colombia. The 17th NAM Summit on Margarita Island (Nueva Esparta state) will conclude today after five days of work attended by 136 delegations.