Kuisch-Laroche made the remarks Tuesday in an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on the sidelines of UNESCO celebration marking World Day for Cultural Diversity 2018 in Iran.
Evaluating Iranian culture, UNESCO envoy said, “Iran has an amazing culture, very long history and civilization, so it is fantastic for UNESCO to work in this country. There is so much cultural diversity; every province is different with so many ethnic groups and this is really a day to celebrate the cultural diversity.”
“We believe in UNESCO that when we get to know other cultures and get to understand people customs and traditions, we foster great understanding and harmony and that is the basis for everlasting peace,” she added.
“I think in this country there are lots of diversities and I think we talked a little bit about globalization this morning and of course there are a lot migration and sometimes people are worried about losing their own culture,” she said elaborating on Iranian government attitude toward cultural diversity.
“And therefore it is very important that we celebrate our culture even if our culture is of smaller groups or countries it is very important that we value them, respect them and celebrate them,” she reiterated.
Elsewhere in her remarks, Kuisch-Laroche referred to UNESCO Cluster office plans to foster cultural diversity in Iran saying, “we work in different areas, First of all we have 22 UNESCO world heritage sites in Iran and many of them represent different cultures and the cultural diversity for example there are Armenian monasteries, mosques, different heritages from different groups and different eras so that’s very important .”
“We also focus on safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage which is all of a tradition that we transmit from one generation to the other, she noted.
She went on to say that Norouz [Iranian New Year eve] is registered as an intangible cultural heritage.
“So we try to focus on different aspects of cultural heritage, tangible to intangible, to really highlight the amazing history and culture that you have in this country, Kuisch-Laroche said.
UNESCO organized a festive event Tueady at the Ivan Attar Auditorium in Sa’adabad Cultural and Historical Complex of Tehran to mark the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development 2018 in Iran.
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