Declaring the Day of Ashgabat City in Albuquerque
On May 24, 2021, a round-table “Sister Cities Ashgabat-Albuquerque” took place at the Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan. It was dedicated to the declaration of May 25, 2021 as the Day of Ashgabat in the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the USA. The Declaration was adopted on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the founding of Ashgabat. This is a testament of the high level relations with Albuquerque, one of the sister cities of the capital Ashgabat.
The round-table meeting was chaired by Jumamyrat Gurbangeldiyev, Rector of the Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan. Esen Aydogdyyev, Rector of the International University for the Humanities and Development, Matthew Klimow, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the United States of America to Turkmenistan, Jacqueline Moore, Cultural Affairs Officer at the Embassy of the USA in Turkmenistan and Merjen Geldiyeva, Deputy Mayor of Ashgabat city participated the event.
In addition, Sally Alice Thompson, Founder and First Chairwoman of the Ashgabat-Albuquerque Sister Cities Committee of the U.S. and Alan McGrattan, Chief of the Ashgabat Sister Cities Committee of the U.S. delivered their greetings and congratulations through videoconferencing. At the end of the meeting, there was a video presentation about sister cities Ashgabat and Albuquerque, prepared by the students of the Faculty of International Journalism of the Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.
The peoples of the two sister cities have many in common. They share and preserve their common cultural values. In recent decades, the sister cities developed cooperation between each other and exchanged their expertise in different spheres of vital activities such as culture, education, health care, technology, sports, urban planning, etc. As speakers noted such an event would contribute to the development of the fraternal relations between Turkmenistan and the United States of America.
Jemal REMATULLAYEVA,
3rd Year Student of
the Faculty of International Relations
of
the Institute of International Relations
of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.