The United Nations and the organisers of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics have called for a seven-week pause in all global conflicts a week ahead of the opening of the competition.
– Supporters of the initiative, which is rooted in an ancient Greek tradition, say it sets a moral baseline at a time when armed conflicts are on the rise.
– Backed by a UN General Assembly resolution, the proposed timeout covers the 6-22 February Winter Games and the 6-15 March Paralympics, with a week added on either side.
– “On ethical grounds, we want to send a message that the Olympic Truce, the Sacred Olympic Truce, should be respected,” Constantinos Filis, director of the International Olympic Truce Centre in Athens, said.
– “This may not always be achievable in practice. But the message reaches every corner of the globe: that wherever possible, we should strive toward creating even a small space for peace.“
– Ceasefire initiatives, Filis argues, still count in an era of global disorder and political polarisation as unilateral power increasingly threatens international cooperation.
– The Olympics were revived in their modern form in 1896 and the concept of a truce surrounding the event came almost a century later, as wars raged through the former Yugoslavia beginning in the early 1990s.
– The truce during the 1994 Winter Games in Norway resulted in a pause in the siege of Sarajevo, allowing aid convoys to deliver food and medicine to the Bosnian capital’s residents.
– Six years later in Sydney, North and South Korea marched together at the opening ceremony.
– In ancient Greece, the truce was respected by warring city-states. It allowed athletes and spectators to travel safely to the Games at Ancient Olympia, an event of supreme athletic and spiritual significance.
– UN truce resolutions typically pass with broad majorities and received all 193 votes for the London Games in 2012. Yet signatories have repeatedly broken their own promises.
– Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 infamously began during a truce period.
– “I think the Olympics are an excellent moment to symbolise peace, to symbolise respect for international law and to symbolise international cooperation,” UN Secretary General António Guterres told reporters on Thursday.