DUSHANBE, March 23, 2013, Asia-Plus — President Emomali Rahmon heading a high-ranking delegation attended the International Navrouz Celebrations in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
This international event reportedly brought together delegations from various countries and international organizations.
A Tajik delegation comprising more than 20 artistes and 15 representatives of Tojikmatloubot (Tajik consumers’ cooperatives) showed its cultural program in Ashgabat. Tajik singers and dancers gave a concert in the Turkmen capital on March 22.
Turkmenista.ru reports that an international conference formally titled “Navrouz – Festival of Peace and Humanism” took place in the Ruhiyet Palace in Ashgabat on March 21.
The festive events were held at the foothills of Kopetdag Mountain Range, some 45 kilometers east of Ashgabat on March 21.
Tajik president attended Navrouz festivities in Turkmenistan along with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as well as high-ranking state officials from some other countries that also celebrate the Navrouz festival.
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.”
Last year, the International Navrouz Celebrations were in held in Dushanbe and in 2011 the International Navrouz Celebrations were held in Tehran, Iran.
