UN General Assembly
1968

81. Once again today we feel strongly the need for a moderating influence in international relations. This influence can be exerted only by a group of nations committed to neither of the two major ideological and power blocs and their respective supporters. The cold war produced such a group in the form of the non-aligned nations, the only grouping left in the world which, irrespective of all differences and distinctions, can evolve a common philosophy in accordance with the tenets of the Charter. During the last few years we had reason to believe that the group had served a real purpose and had, in some small way, contributed to increasing rapprochement and growing co-operation between the two super-Powers and their respective blocs despite the unsettling effect of the Viet-Nam war. Our hopes, however, seem to have been premature. Once more today non-alignment has an important and vital function to discharge. Every accession to the membership of the non-aligned group can greatly fortify its capacity to exert a moderating influence, to interpose itself in moments of crisis between the two groups, and to endeavour to effect a reconciliation between great-Power interests on the one hand and the principles of the Charter and the processes which it prescribes for the settlement of differences on the other.