NEW YORK: Ambassador Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, expressed his best wishes to China for staging a successful Olympic Winter Games that coincide with the Lunar New Year.
“We are confident that, overcoming all difficulties, China will organise the Winter Olympics meticulously and make it a spectacular event for the athletes, the Chinese people and the whole world which will be watching this great event,” he said at the virtual celebration, hosted by the Chinese mission to the UN and held in New York, on Friday (early Saturday in Pakistan).
The 2022 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place from February 4-20 in Beijing and venues near the neighbouring towns of Yanqing and Chongli in China, merely six months after the Tokyo Games.
“The global welcome to the hosting of the Winter Olympics in Beijing is a testimony of the world’s high regard for China, and respect for its great achievements, under the leadership of the CPC (Chinese Communist Party) and President Xi Jinping,” Ambassador Akram said.
In his remarks, he wished the people and leaders of China and the nation’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun a “very happy Chinese New Year”, noting that Beijing will have the unique distinction of having hosted both the Summer, which it did in 2008, and Winter Olympics.
“The people of Pakistan and Prime Minister Imran Khan greatly admire China’s unprecedented achievements in economic, social, technological and industrial development,” Ambassador Akram said, recalling Khan would personally attend the games at President Xi’s invitation.
“Pakistan wishes China and the Chinese people all success in hosting the Winter Olympics and a very happy, peaceful and prosperous year of the Tiger,” he said.
During a recent press conference, Secretary General António Guterres lauded the Games as being “an extremely important manifestation in today’s world of the possibility of unity, mutual respect, and cooperation between different cultures, religions and ethnicities”, calling for nations to observe the Olympic Truce, endorsed last week through a resolution of the General Assembly.
“I think the Olympic ideal is something that we have to cherish, and that is the reason why I am going […] and it has nothing to do with my opinions about the different policies that take place in the People’s Republic of China,” said Guterres.
The Olympic Truce has a 3,000-year-old history, dating from when the Ancient Greeks established the sacred truce of Ekecheiria to allow the participation in the Olympic Games of all athletes and spectators from the over 1,000 Greek City-States which were otherwise almost constantly engaged in conflict with each other.
Earlier, General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid appealed to all member states to demonstrate their commitment to the Olympic Truce and to undertake “concrete actions at the local, national, regional and world levels to promote and strengthen a culture of peace and harmony”.
“I also call upon all warring parties of current armed conflicts around the world to boldly agree to true mutual ceasefires for the duration of the Olympic Truce, thus providing an opportunity to settle disputes peacefully,” he added.
UN resolution 76/13, titled “Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal”, was co-sponsored by 173 member nations, including Pakistan, and adopted by consensus.
It called for the observance of a truce during the Beijing Games, beginning seven days before the start of the Olympics on February 4 until seven days after the end of the Paralympics.
The resolution also encouraged all Member States to cooperate with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in using sport as “a tool to promote peace, dialogue and reconciliation in areas of conflict during and beyond the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games”.
