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UNESCO pleas to save ancient Buddhas
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UNESCO chief Koichiro Matsuura on Wednesday urged Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia to reconsider its decision to destroy two ancient Buddhas and other non-Islamic religious shrines.
"Carrying out this decision would be a real cultural disaster that will cause irreparable harm to a heritage of exceptional universal value," Matsuura said in a statement issued by the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
"This heritage is central to Afghanistan's memory and identity and is a landmark in the history of other civilizations," he said.
But Afghanistan's foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel said that Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's decision to destroy the statues was irreversible.
Matsuura met on Wednesday with Pakistan's ambassador to France, Shaharyar M Khan, to enlist his country's help in persuading the Taliban to change their minds. Khan appeared to share Matsuura's concern about the planned destruction of pre-Islamic heritage in Afghanistan, a UNESCO source said.
The UNESCO leader said he had sent a telegram to Omar, supreme leader of the Taliban, urging him not to carry through with the religious edict announced on Monday.
"The loss of the Afghan statues, and of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in particular, would be a loss for humanity as a whole," he said.
The massive Buddhas, carved into a sandstone cliff near the provincial capital of Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan, stand 50 metres and 34.5 metres tall and date back to the second century.
(SD-Agencies)
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