The president of the Republic, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, last Friday, returned to Banjul at the end of the 15th ordinary session of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, held at the Egyptian Red Sea Resort of Sham El-Sheikh.

President Jammeh was received on arrival at the Banjul International Airport by the vice president and minister of Women's Affairs, Aja Dr Isatou-Njie-Saidy, The Speaker of the National Assembly,The Chief Justice, ministers, service chiefs, senior government officials, members of the diplomatic and consular community, religious leaders and  various cultural groups, amongst others.

Speaking to journalist after the usual arrival ceremony, the Gambian leader defended the relevance of an organisation he said had only been dormant for some unidentified reasons rather being irrelevant. ''Remember during the height of the cold war, it played a very significant part and of course before that even. It was a question of - maybe at some point being a little bit not very active - but it is still very relevant and not struggling to be relevant,'' he said.

According to the president, all that the organisation needed was to assert its authority as it has a large number of states - more states than the AU. Professor Jammeh described the Non-Aligned Movement as a block to be reckoned with, but he emphasised that it first has to speak with one voice and take a common stance if it is to exercise a greater voice than the United Nations.

President Jammeh said: ''Among the Non-Align Movement you have some of the newly emerging powers like India, Brazil and others. So it is a very, very relevant institution. It is just that at some point it was somehow dormant for one reason or the other.''Regarding the thorny issue of the Middle East crisis, the president stated: ''People made statements concerning the Middle East and their concerns for the Middle East.

I think the positions are unanimous for us to make sure that there is an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and I think this time around, we are going to take further action at the level of the United Nations to make sure that security council resolutions are respected, not only by Third World countries, but also by the super powers that are permanent members of the security council. And so also you might have heard that everybody spoke against the illegal sanctions that have been imposed on Cuba for almost 50 years now. The Non-Aligned Movement is making it clear that nobody should be above the law.''

President Jammeh, however, envisaged an amicable resolution of the Middle East crisis, especially in the light of the new sense of hope ushered in by the election of a new president in the United States, Barack Obama, whose promises to make the US a friendly nation, generated quite a lot of hope.

In the meantime, however, as far as President Jammeh is concerned, for everyone to live in peace, international security or the security of states can always be guaranteed by the type of action you take towards other states, otherwise you will never be secured. ''Even the smallest human being,'' he said, ''has dignity, much more nations.

We may be small nations or big nations; we may be rich and poor; the bottom line is we are human beings, and each is bound to fight and defend his or her integrity, no matter what the odds against him in taking up such a fight,'' the president said, and added, ''To give chance to world peace, there should be equality under the international law".