DUSHANBE, March 13, 2013, Asia-Plus — On Tuesday March 12, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon had a telephone conversation with his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov.
According to the Tajik president’s official website, the two considered issues related to state and prospects of further expansion of bilateral cooperation between their countries.
Special attention was reportedly given to the International Navrouz Celebrations that will be held this year in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat. The heads of state, in particular, noted that meetings and negotiations that were held during the Navrouz festival gave an opportunity to discuss many important regional issues.
We will recall that Tajikistan hosted the Third International Navrouz Celebrations last year.
The United Nations General Assembly recognized the International Day of Nowruz (In Tajik Navrouz), a spring festival of Persian origin, on March 23, 2010.
According to the preamble of the resolution on the International Day, Nowruz, which means new day, is celebrated on 21 March, the day of the vernal equinox, by more than 300 million people worldwide as the beginning of the new year. It has been celebrated for over 3,000 years in the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and other regions.
The Assembly called on Member States that celebrate the festival to study its history and traditions with a view to disseminating that knowledge among the international community and organizing annual commemoration events.
Welcoming the inclusion of Navrouz into the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on September 30, 2009, the text notes the festival’s “affirmation of life in harmony with nature, the awareness of the inseparable link between constructive labor and natural cycles of renewal and the solicitous and respectful attitude towards natural sources of life.”
