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Mubarak Urged to Help Prevent Taliban From Destroying Statues
A senior UN official Wednesday asked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to help prevent the Taliban from destroying ancient Buddhist statues throughout Afghanistan, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported.
Matsuura Koichiro, director-general of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), called Mubarak, asking him to intervene to salvage the pre-Islamic statues.
Mubarak promised Koichiro that "he would ask the appropriate authorities to establish contact with the Taliban to end this affair," the news agency said.
The U.N. official spoke highly of Egypt's role in preserving the cultural heritage in the world. Egypt has made efforts to protect a great collection of pre-Islamic monuments in the country, such as those of the pharaohs, Greco-Romans and Coptic Christians.
Koichiro hoped that Egypt, a key Sunni Muslim nation in the Arab and Muslim world, could play a big role in persuading the Taliban who are also Sunni to stop their demolition.
The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic militia, have vowed to destroy all Buddhist monuments in the country, including two massive ancient Buddhas in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, towering 50 meters and 34.5 meters, respectively, and carved into sandstone cliffs.
They have already smashed major statue collections in several parts of the country since last week when the reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar issued a decree to destroy what he termed "un-Islamic idols."
Sources in Kabul said that Afghan Islamic clerics have urged the ruling Taliban's supreme leader not to bow to international pressure and to push ahead with the controversial plan to destroy the historic statues.
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