Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdulla Shahid has travelled to Baku, Azerbaijan to participate in the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Being held in Azerbaijan, the summit will proceed for a period of two days from 25 – 26 October.

While FM Shahid travelled to Azerbaijan after concluding his official visit tp Japan with President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

The Foreign Minister is set to deliver a statement at the summit, meet leaders around the globe and hold significant discussions on the sidelines of the summit.

His statement will mainly focus around outlines of why NAM and it’s principles are important to the small-island state and why the Maldives wants to re-engage with the international community.

While FM Shahid is attending the summit on behalf President Solih to represent Maldives, he took to twitter shortly after attending the opening ceremony, expressing his keenness to “very constructive” meetings with partner countries.

On the sidelines of his visit, FM Shahid met with several leaders including Vice President of India Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani as well as Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad.

Shahid expressed that Maldives has always had “excellent” relations with Malaysia and its people and is already working to strengthen close relations, during his meeting with PM Mahathir.