The Non-Aligned Movement has encouraged international politics to strive for a peaceful and just world order and has laid the foundations for partnership, mutual respect and solidarity, Zbogar said at a panel on the second day of the meeting.

However, he stressed there were still nations waiting for freedom and justice, adding that Palestinians were the ones that would soon see their day of freedom, the Serbian press agency Tanjug quoted Zbogar as saying.

"Slovenia remains true to the principles of the movement and the foreign policy based on them," said Zbogar, who was invited to the two-day meeting by his Egyptian and Serbian counterparts.

Like the movement, Slovenia believes in efficient multilateralism as a basis for addressing global challenges and supports principled, transparent and open foreign policy, Zbogar further said according to a press release from the Foreign Ministry.

The minister added that Slovenia thus had a similar view to that of the Non-Aligned Movement regarding the need to make the UN more democratic and to reform the UN Security Council, where developing countries can play an important role.

The meeting gathered foreign ministers and high representatives of Non-Aligned Movement members, successors to former Yugoslavia, observer countries, guests and representatives of different international organisations like the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Before leaving for Belgrade, Zbogar said he would use the opportunity to seek support for Slovenia's candidacy for non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council as part of the Eastern European Group, which will be vacated by Bosnia-Herzegovina at the end of the year.

Zbogar told the press on the sidelines of an informal foreign ministers' meeting in Poland's Sopot on Saturday that Slovenia had a two-third support in the EU for its bid and that he would try to persuade some more ministers in Belgrade.

The opposition Democrats (SDS) responded to Zbogar's lobbying at the ministerial, claiming that Slovenia should focus on following the interests and ambitious of its allies and otherwise related democratic and economically most developed countries.

Lobbying implies listening to the wishes of the supporters. Lobbying in the Non-Aligned Movement, which is linked to Slovenia's non-democratic past under former Yugoslavia, is thus an "unclear and probably misguided contribution to the strategy of the Slovenian foreign policy," the SDS wrote.