Nowruz is celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox, March 21 or 20 depending on the year, as the beginning of the new year. Nowruz, also known as the festival of fire, has been widely celebrated for more than 3,000 years in the Balkans, the Black Sea basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Iran and southeastern Turkey.
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.
The resolution 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.”
The text was introduced by Azerbaijan’s representative, who said that, as a holiday celebrated in many parts of the world with themes important to all humanity, Nowruz encouraged intercultural dialogue and understanding. Speaking after the assembly took action on the draft, the representative of Iran marked its adoption by quoting lines of the Persian poet Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi that expressed the holiday’s theme of rebirth “on our planet and in our souls.”
