Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday asked UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to cancel his plans to participate in a conference of the Non-Aligned Movement, schedule to take place in Tehran in late August.

“Your trip to Iran is a big mistake, even if it is being done out of good intentions,” Netanyahu told Ban in a telephone call, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Netanyahu said Ban had “acted fairly” during his years leading the UN, adding, “Thus, I was so disappointed to hear about your trip to the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Tehran.”

Founded in 1961, the Non-Aligned Movement was created by developing countries seeking to steer a middle course during the Cold War. While the organization has 120 member states and 21 observer countries, only some 31 heads of state are scheduled to attend the Tehran conference, according to Iranian media reports.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift and our board will match it.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$129 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT