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Pakistan urges peace through tolerance at UN Nowruz celebration

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UNITED NATIONS: Hundreds of diplomats and United Nations officials joined in celebrating Nowruz, which marks the advent of spring, at UN headquarters in New York where 12 countries, including Pakistan, held a colourful food festival.

Iran coordinated the organization of the festival and along with the other participating countries — Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — presented their traditional dishes that visitors sampled.

Among the most visited was Pakistan’s stall serving delicious biryani, Seekh kabab, samosas as well as deserts like gulab jaman, gajjar ka halwa and burfi.

Greeting the visitors at Pakistan’s stall was Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, who underscored the significance of Nowruz as an occasion encourages reconciliation and good neighbourliness that lead to peace.

“It is also an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the values of tolerance, solidarity, and harmony, and a common aspiration for a peaceful, just and prosperous world,” she said in an interview.

“At a time when intolerance, xenophobia and Islamophobia threaten the world we live in, Nowruz shines a light of hope and optimism by its message of a new beginning, of seeking peace through tolerance and promoting dialogue and reconciliation among peoples,” the Pakistani envoy said.

Ambassador Lodhi said that as Pakistan’s contribution to internationalizing Nowruz, it became a proud co-sponsor, along with 12 other member states, including Iran, in efforts to preserve the culture associated with Nowruz through a General Assembly Resolution adopted in 2010.

M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.