JAKARTA - United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries around the world to stop armed conflict or ceasefire for the 2024 Paris Olympics which will open on Friday, July 26, 2024, Paris time.
Guterres met with the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, and said that the 2024 Olympics was an opportunity to achieve peace.
"I would like to express the United Nations' full support to the IOC. We live in a divided world, where conflicts proliferate dramatically."
"The terrible suffering in Gaza, the seemingly endless war in Ukraine, the terrible suffering from Sudan to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from the Sahel to Myanmar."
"At a time like this it is important to say that the first peace initiative recorded in history was the Olympic ceasefire," Guterres said.
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During the Olympics in ancient Greece, all conflicts stopped during the Olympics to allow competition to continue.
"At the time the Olympics are about to start, it is time to remind the world of the importance of the Olympic ceasefire and make the world understand that we must silence weapons," he said.
The 2024 Paris Olympics will open on Friday, July 26, 2024, and end on August 11, 2024, with the participation of more than 10,500 athletes representing 206 countries and territories.
They include the Palestinian team, which despite not being a full member of the United Nations, having official National Olympic Committees, as well as athletes from Russia and Belarus, who will compete as neutral athletes without flags or symbols after the 2022 Ukrainian invasion.
"So, this is the time when I sincerely beg the countries to unite with the same spirit as the athletes who will unite during the 2024 Paris Olympics," Guterres said.
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