IRAN EYES 9TH UNESCO INSCRIPTION

PRESS TV, Iran
Thu, 03 Jul 2008

Iran’s Armenian monastic ensembles in Azerbaijan province Iran hopes
its Armenian monastic ensembles will be added to UNESCO’s list,
in the 32nd session of World Heritage Committee’s in Canada.

The World Heritage Committee’s 32nd session started July 2 and will
run for 8 days. During this year’s session 41 States Parties to the
World Heritage Convention, including Iran, will present properties
for inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Among the applicants are five countries that have no sites inscribed
on the List namely Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, Saudi
Arabia and Vanuatu.

Iran currently has eight historical sites on the UNESCO
list. Pasargadae, Bam and its Cultural Landscape, Tchogha Zanbil,
Persepolis, Meidan Emam in Esfahan, Bisotun, Takht-e Soleyman and
Soltaniyeh, the mausoleum of Oljaytu.

This time Iran is nominating its magnificent Armenian monastic
ensembles in Azerbaijan province, hoping they will become its ninth
inscription on the World Heritage List.

The Committee will also review the state of conservation of the 30
World Heritage sites inscribed on the ‘List of World Heritage in
Danger’ and may decide to add new sites to that list of properties
whose preservation requires special attention.

The ‘List in Danger’ features sites which are threatened by a variety
of problems such as natural disasters, pillaging, pollution, and poorly
managed mass tourism, that may have a negative impact on the universal
values for which they were inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Among sites on the List in Danger, the cultural landscape of Germany’s
Dresden Elbe Valley will come under particular scrutiny. In keeping
with the decision it took at its last meeting, the Committee will
decide whether to keep the property on the World Heritage List
or whether the building of a bridge in the heart of the landscape
warrants its deletion from the list.

In the Middle East, applicants include Yemen for its Socotra
Archipelago; Saudi Arabia for archaeological site al-Hijr and Israel
for the triple-arch gate at Dan and the Bahai holy places in Haifa
and western Galilee.