COLOMBO: Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has expressed the hope that under the leadership of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the non-aligned movement would assume an “effective role” in influencing the evolution of world events. “We wish you all success in your endeavours to meet this formidable challenge,” Mr Bhutto said in a message to the Sri Lankan Prime Minister on the eve of the opening of the Fifth Non-Aligned Summit tomorrow morning [Aug 16].

[Meanwhile, as reported by our Islamabad Bureau,] President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania has fully endorsed [PM Bhutto’s] call for convening a Third World Summit conference to mobilise combined energies of the Third World countries for establishment of just world economic relations. [In] a joint communique issued today [Aug 15] on the conclusion of the visit to Pakistan [of the Mauritanian President] the two leaders expressed their disappointment at the failure of UNCTAD IV to find solutions of problems of developing countries as well as at the deadlock of [the] conference on international economic cooperation… .

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2026