Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan's First Lady, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Mehriban Aliyeva attended a ceremony devoted to the 20th anniversary of Azerbaijan's membership in UNESCO held at the headquarters of the organization in Paris on July 18.

First, Mehriban Aliyeva met with UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova. It was mentioned at the meeting that very fruitful partnership has been established between Azerbaijan and UNESCO over the past 20 years and that these relations will continue and develop further.

Discussions were held on future cooperation between the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, headed by Mehriban Aliyeva, and UNESCO, and inscribing more cultural monuments of Azerbaijan on the organization's list of cultural heritage, as well as the meeting of the UNESCO intergovernmental committee devoted to intangible cultural heritage to be held in December this year in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku.

Then a Framework Agreement was signed between the Azerbaijani government and UNESCO on cooperation in the fields of education, science, culture and communication. The document was signed by Azerbaijani Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev and Irina Bokova.

Bokova thanked President Ilham Aliyev for the years-long cooperation with Azerbaijan and emphasized the support provided by the First Lady for the preservation of cultural heritage.

She noted that the document signed was a significant step forward towards establishment of a fund to support joint endeavours of Azerbaijan and UNESCO in education, culture and preservation of the environment.

Then Aliyeva and Bokova attended the ceremony of presenting a stone horse and a stone ram by Azerbaijan to UNESCO on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the country's accession to the reputable organization.

Placed at UNESCO headquarters' yard, these statues will permanently be exhibited there. The monuments belong to the 12-13th centuries and were found in Ashaghy Ayibli village of Tovuz region. In general, stone horse and ram figures are related to widespread types of our traditional folk art and national stone plastics art. Such statues show that both horse and ram had been accepted by our people as serious and long-lasting symbols.

Books reflecting stone statues found in Azerbaijan were distributed among attendees of the ceremony.

Addressing the ceremony, the UNESCO Director General said, "Dear Friends, UNESCO is your home and, as for other countries, it is also Azerbaijan's home. I'm greatly honored to welcome here Her Excellency, Azerbaijan's First Lady. A few weeks earlier, I participated in the opening of the 2nd International Forum for intercultural dialogue on the theme of 'Peaceful Coexistence in a Multicultural World' in Azerbaijan. Our intensive discussions covered very pressing challenges of our time. Late this year, we are going to hold the 8th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Baku."

According to Bokova, all these efforts show the scale of cooperation and attention paid by the Azerbaijani leadership to the popularization of UNESCO ideas. She said the Azerbaijani leadership is effectively using UNESCO as a center for exchange, science and art to promote the country's old history, which has direct relation with the Silk Way.

Bokova emphasized that the richness of Azerbaijan has been reflected in UNESCO's history of Central Asia civilizations, speaking volumes of continuous dialogue among cultures.

"This has found its reflection in the walls of the Old City, which has been entered in UNESCO's World Heritage List. We are witnessing this also in the matchless intangible heritage of Azerbaijan. It includes ancient carpet making art and Novruz Holiday, which is celebrated also in Turkey, Iran, India, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. UNESCO's cooperation with Azerbaijan is rich and large-scaled. Today we strengthened this cooperation too," she said.

Bokova also expressed her sincere gratitude to President Ilham Aliyev and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Mehriban Aliyeva for their contribution to the development of the relations.

"I would like to specifically thank dear Mehriban Aliyeva for her contribution to the development of education, in particular, education for girls, and her initiatives. I would like to mention the financing of the construction of a girls' school in Pakistan. There were also other significant initiatives, and 132 new schools have been constructed in a number of regions of your country within the framework of the project 'New schools for the new Azerbaijan'."

Bokova also noted the dialogue of civilizations, music education, and highly assessed Azerbaijan's loyal attitude towards developing education for girls.

"In the statues we inaugurate today, I see the representation of your country's spirit," she said. "They are expressing the form of art created in the Middle Ages and conveyed from generation to generation in oral form. I would say, they picture the cosmography bringing peoples and religions, the worlds of human beings and animals together. For this donation, I would like to express my deep thanks to the government of Azerbaijan."