The Diplomat in Spain

Gaspar, Mayor Zaragoza, Colomer y Molina./ Photo: Instituto Seda España

The Diplomat. 01/07/2018

The International Press Center of Madrid hosted last week the presentation of the Silk Institute Spain, a private body created to strengthen ties between areas and silk regions of Spain and their equivalents in the countries where the historic Silk Routes and the New Silk Routes.

The objective of the Institute, made up of associations, companies and public and private organizations, is «to propitiate an adequate climate to talk about the topics of the world of Silk in its broadest conception and to make known the different realities of silk in Spain and in the more than 50 countries through which the old and new Terrestrial and Maritime Silk Routes pass».

Therefore, they added, the objective is “to favor peace through knowledge, dialogue, exchange and shared projects» through seminars, conferences, colloquia and other public activities.

During the ceremony, which took place on June 19, the president of the Culture of Peace Foundation and honorary president of the Silk Institute Spain, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, stressed that the leitmotiv of the Institute is «to help the Silk Roads are considered Peace Routes”.

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Presented the Silk Institute Spain, a bridge between the Spanish silk regions and the Silk Roads

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For his part, the president of the On-line Platform for the Silk Road UNESCO, José María Chiquillo, stressed the need to defend the «tangible and intangible» heritage of the various land and sea routes and Francesc Colomer, secretary of Tourism of the Generalitat Valenciana, highlighted the value of Valencia as the end of the Silk Road.

Also, the president of the Institute, Fernando Molina, explained the main concrete areas of work of the new body, and Enrique Gaspar, vice president and responsible for the subject matter, announced that the Institute will be presented shortly at the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels and, in November, in the Global Alliance of Civilizations Forum, which will take place at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The event was attended by numerous ambassadors of the Silk Road countries, as well as the ambassador for the Alliance in Special Mission for Civilizations, Belén Alfaro, and the ambassador of Spain in Special Mission for Central Asia, Manuel Larrotcha.