Rick Gladstone
Iran said Monday that it would oppose attempts by Azerbaijan
to officially register polo with the United Nations as a purely
indigenous sport, arguing that polo is an international game and
Azerbaijan has no right to claim that it originated there. The official
Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Mohammad-Ali Najafi, the head of
Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization [ICHHTO], as
saying in a letter to Unesco
that “Iran strongly requests the rejection” of Azerbaijan’s application
to register polo — which both nations call chogan — as an entry on the
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. (*)
