Specialists of a unit of the International Anti-Mine Center of the Russian Armed Forces are going to demine cultural heritage facilities and infrastructure in Palmyra. Yesterday, Russian mine pickers explored 12 ha of the historic part of the city; 158 explosive objects were neutralized. Palmyra has architectural historic monuments of the 1st and 2ndcenturies A.D. Annually the city was visited by more than 150 thousand tourists. The city was liberated from terrorists by the Syrian army with the support of the Russian Air Space Forces in March.
Speaking about the historical heritage of Syria, the president of the publishing house 'Byblos Consulting', a political scientist, Ali Salim Assad, notes that the country is rich in monuments; and Palmyra is the most famous, but not the only one. The Saint Simeon Stylites Church was also completely destroyed in Aleppo. Many monuments were desecrated, destroyed and robbed.
“In 2003, when Iraq was captured, the Americans took only the Ministry of Oil of Iraq under their protection, and everything else was left for looting. The main museum of the Iraqi capital was looted, and a very large number of artifacts fell into the black market. And there were even orders for them. 'Arab Spring' is an international project, not only an American project. This is a project of transnational corporations, who want to completely destroy statehood in the Middle East. In order to control and manipulate the people who live there it is necessary to destroy them, and it is necessary to deprive them of their historical roots. Thus the destruction of these monuments begins everywhere,” Ali Salim Assad says.
“We see these atrocities against not only monuments of history, but also religious monuments – Christian, Islamic, which are being destroyed with the silent consent of the West. Now Syria starts with a victory over the radical fascist front which is represented by Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusra, and so on. Preservation and return of these monuments of history is not only the task of Syria, but a global task. But unfortunately we see that today, from the entire international community, only Russia resolves these problems. Thanks to this operation in Syria, today we are talking about the possibility of a return of the whole territory of Syria under the control of the legitimate Syrian authority. A political settlement has started. This is a very important process for us Syrians, because we are well aware that we won't have a future in Syria without a political settlement,” Ali Salim Asad stated.
