UNESCO to host donors' conference on cultural heritage in Kosovo

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is set to host a donors' conference on cultural heritage in Kosovo, where 75 monuments are in need of urgent repair or restoration.

Friday's meeting in Paris aims to help in the restoration, protection and preservation of the many Christian and Islamic monuments, and other sites of major historical importance, which were targets of destruction in Kosovo, a UN spokesman said in the province's capital, Pristina.

According to reports by UNESCO and the Council of Europe, the list includes 48 Orthodox monuments, 14 Islamic/Ottoman monuments and 13 examples of vernacular architecture and other historic sites. The monuments surveyed require work which will cost, in the initial phase, €40 million (euros).

The chief of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Søren Jessen-Pedersen, is scheduled to take part in the conference, to be chaired by UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.