Non-aligned nations welcomed Venezuela into their movement Friday and began preparing for a summit that is intended to salvage the waning influence of the 28-year-old organization.
Ministers from non-aligned countries met behind closed doors to iron out final details of next week's summit. The group formally accepted Venezuela as the 102nd member of the movement, the state news agency Tanjug said.Nicaragua and Indonesia also put in bids to host the next summit in 1992, conference sources said.
The preparatory meeting that began Friday is to conclude on Saturday. Ministers are expected to adopt a formal agenda for the summit that begins Monday.
Next week's summit will focus on ways to revamp and modernize the movement, the role of which has declined steadily in the past decade.
"We are to some extent out of step with . . . times that are dynamic and wait for no one," Yugoslav Foreign Minister Budimir Loncar told Friday's gathering.
"We must must catch up (and) equip ourselves for the future so as to be able to influence it with the strength of our vision," he said. Minutes later the meeting was declared closed to the media.
In the 1970s and 1980s, countries belonging to a movement that once prided itself on its efforts to secure international peace have fought a series of wars against each other, culminating in the Persian Gulf war between Iran and Iraq.
Loncar praised Thursday's agreement between Libya and Chad, both members of the non-aligned movement, to end their long-running conflict over a disputed border strip by referring it to the International Court in the Hague.
The summit, which will last through Sept. 7, will bring together 53 heads of state and 12 prime ministers from the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America in Belgrade's modernistic Sava center.
They include Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe - the current chairman of the Non-aligned Movement - India's Rajiv Ghandi, Cuba's Fidel Castro, and PLO chief Yasser Arafat.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has flown in four camels to keep him supplied with camel's milk, as well as two horses and a desert tent to maintain his lifestyle while in Belgrade, Tanjug reported.