CAIRO: UNESCO chief Irina Bokova reached out to the Arab world during a Cairo visit on Monday aimed at easing tensions with the Egyptian rival she beat for the organization s top job.
By coming here to Cairo which embodies the richness of mixture and diversity of cultures … I want to show UNESCO s will to reinforce the close connections which join it to the Arab world and African world, Bokova said.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in September picked the Bulgarian career diplomat as its new director-general, ahead of Egypt s Culture Minister Farouk Hosni who was seen as the frontrunner, after an unprecedented five rounds of voting.
Bokova told a Cairo forum on Arab-African Dialogue of Democracy and Human Rights that she seeks to highlight the links between cultures and intensify dialogue.
She planned to create a high-level panel on peace and dialogue between cultures, to push forward more thought on culture, tolerance (and) reconciliation.
Many capitals had initially supported Hosni as a gesture of reconciliation with the Arab world and Islam.
But his election campaign met strong opposition from US and French commentators, who accused him of anti-Semitism after he had said he would burn Israeli books.
After his defeat in a race dubbed a clash of civilizations, Hosni lashed out at UNESCO for being politicized and said he had had the Western press and Zionist pressures against him every day. -AFP
