PARIS — A dispute has erupted at the
UN cultural agency over Russia’s hosting of its
World Heritage Committee in just
two months, which Western nations say they will boycott over the invasion of
Ukraine.
اضافة اعلان
Russia is due to host the annual meeting of
UNESCO’s
World Heritage Committee in the city of Kazan in its Tatarstan region from June
19–30.
The meeting is notably tasked each year with
deciding which sites and monuments will be given the organization’s coveted
World Heritage status — and which could be stripped of the label if countries
have fallen short on looking after them.
The meeting is one of the few international events
that Russia is still scheduled to host after
President Vladimir Putin’s
invasion of Ukraine.
But in a sign of the West’s difficulties in building
a broad international coalition against Moscow, the campaign to strip Kazan of
its right to host the event is proving an uphill battle.
Just a week before official invitations are set out,
the mainly Western nations opposing Russia’s right to host the event are racing
against the clock to try to convince the committee to find another venue and
strip Russia of its presidency of the group.
“It’s complicated,” an ambassador of a Western
nation who asked to remain anonymous told AFP in Paris, referring to the
reluctance of some countries to isolate Russia at an institution that
traditionally encourages dialogue in the face of crises.
It was decided in July 2021 to award the meeting to
Kazan, the cultural center of Russia’s Turkic Tatar minority that has long
billed itself as a meeting point between different cultures and religions.
British Culture Minister Nadine Dorries said in
March that it was “inconceivable”
Russia should host the meeting, and that
Britain would not attend if it did.
Ukraine’s Culture Minister
Oleksandr Tkachenko echoed her call, saying Russia’s goal is to “destroy Ukraine” and suggesting
the session should be moved to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
On April 8, 46 states led by Britain wrote a letter
to all members of the World Heritage Committee saying they “would not attend a
meeting of the Committee either in Russia or under Russian presidency.”
It said such a meeting is “impossible” while Russia
is destroying “outstanding universal value” in Ukraine.
Since then, intense behind the scenes discussions
have been taking place to find an agreement.
UNESCO is at pains to emphasize that the decision on
the meeting is not taken by UNESCO’s leaders but by the members of the World
Heritage Committee.
The 21 countries that make up the World Heritage
Committee and to whom the UK letter was addressed include
Argentina, India, and
Saudi Arabia.
Two-thirds of the members must agree to hold an
extraordinary meeting on the issue, where a decision on the Kazan meeting could
be decided by consensus or majority vote.
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