HAVANA, Sept 7: The United States will not attend next week’s summit in Cuba of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that will gather some of its most hostile critics just 150kms from US soil, the top US diplomat in Cuba said on Thursday.

Michael Parmly said the United States had not taken up an invitation to attend the summit of 116 developing nations as an observer as it has in the past, noting that Washington had a better relationship with previous host Malaysia than it does with communist Cuba.

“We simply did not pick up the invitation,” Parmly told Reuters.

Cuba has been an ideological foe of the United States since Fidel Castro came to power in a 1959 revolution.

The presidents of Iran and Syria, countries the Bush administration sees as members of an ‘axis of evil’, are expected at the meeting, as well as a high-ranking delegation from the other alleged member, North Korea.

The summit is expected to endorse Iran’s nuclear energy program and condemn Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and U.S. trade sanctions against Cuba.

Mr Parmly said he would be surprised if the summit did not come out with a statement in support of Tehran.—Reuters