Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Damascus, SANA- The meeting, which was held on Monday at the National Museum in Damascus under the title (Cultural Heritage in Danger), and brought together a number of Syrian and Russian experts in the field of cultural and urban heritage and museums, focused on cooperation between the two sides to protect this heritage through missions and documentation processes.
During the meeting, the Russian side presented to the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums the results of the documentation work it had carried out for the city of Palmyra and some churches.
Head General of Antiquities and Museums Directorate, Mohammad Nazir Awwad, indicated in a statement to reporters that the interventions focused on the importance of the Syrian cultural heritage and the need for binding international agreements to protect it as the most important human heritage.
Awwad indicated that cooperation between the two sides is developing well and that the Russian side promised to provide three-dimensional documentation when it is fully completed to be used in restoration operations.
Natalia Sulfov from the Russian Academy of Sciences indicated that the meeting comes within the Syrian-Russian joint meeting to follow up the work of the international conference on the return of Syrian refugees and displaced persons and with the aim of helping the Syrian heritage recover, which will contribute to encouraging the displaced to return to their cities, in addition to securing job opportunities for them, and bringing back tourism to their areas.
Sulfov indicated that the participants discussed how to preserve the Syrian cultural heritage from the dangers it is exposed to as it is a human heritage, noting that there has been cooperation for three years with the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums on a project documenting damage and creating a three-dimensional model for the city of Palmyra and a project on documenting churches and monasteries and the damage they were subjected to.
Ruaa al-Jazaeri
