QNA/Astana


Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, held talks here yesterday on the sidelines of the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures (2013-2022), which started on Friday.  
“International dialogue can act as a major source for building peace and attaining sustainable development. This idea lies at the heart of the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures, initiated by Kazakhstan and led by Unesco,” al-Nasser said.
Unesco director general Irina Bokova said: “The objective of the Decade is to promote mutual understanding and respect for diversity, rights and equal dignity between peoples, through intercultural dialogue and concrete initiatives.”
She said: “These tasks have never been as important as they are today - in a world changing quickly, where all societies are transforming and deeply fragile, where ‘differences’ are too often seen as ‘challenges.”
“The objective of the Decade is to promote mutual understanding and respect for diversity, rights and equal dignity between peoples, through intercultural dialogue and concrete initiatives,” she added.
Al-Nasser earlier met Khairat Mami, the chairman of the House of Representatives in the Kazakh Parliament, Khazakh Foreign Affairs Minister Erlan Idrissov, Minister of Culture Mokhtar Mohamed and the Governor of the city of Astana.