Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left Dhaka for Baku on a four-day official visit to Azerbaijan to attend the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), reports state media agency BSS.

The two-day summit of the NAM, a forum of 120 developing countries, will be held at Baku Congress Centre in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku on Oct 25-26.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will join the summit along with other heads of state and government of the member states of the NAM,” PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim told BSS on Wednesday.

On Friday morning, Sheikh Hasina will join the welcome ceremony of the 18th NAM Summit at Baku Congress Centre.

Azerbaijan President, Prime Minister and Speaker are expected to receive the NAM leaders at the venue.

Along with other NAM leaders, the Bangladesh prime minister will attend the opening ceremony of the summit at the Plenary Hall of Baku Congress Centre.

Afterwards, Sheikh Hasina will join Working Luncheon for heads of the delegation at the Luncheon Hall of the centre and the Plenary Session.

In the evening, the prime minister will attend the official reception to be hosted by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev at Heydar Aliyev Center.

On Saturday, Sheikh Hasina will join the Plenary Session, the Working Luncheon for the heads of delegation and the Closing Ceremony of the summit.

She will attend a dinner to be hosted at Hilton Baku by the Bangladesh Ambassador to Turkey who is concurrently accredited to Azerbaijan.

On the sidelines of the NAM Summit, the prime minister is expected to meet a number of heads of state or government, foreign ministry sources said.

The NAM is a forum of 120 developing world states that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.

Drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955, the NAM was established in 1961 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia through an initiative of the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and ex-Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito.

Venezuela’s Margarita Island hosted the 17th NAM Summit in 2016. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is the current chairperson of the NAM.