Taliban unwavering on destruction of statues

The ruling Taliban Islamic Movement has vowed to persist with its plan to destroy ancient Buddhist statues, despite international outrage at what would be a terrible loss to the cultural heritage of Afghanistan and the wider world. The Taliban's foreign minister, Moulvi Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, said on Wednesday that the decision by the movement's supreme spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, that Afghanistan's pre-Islamic statues - including the world's tallest Buddha - should be destroyed was "irreversible", AFP reported. Following condemnation of Monday's decree by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and protests from Afghans, Buddhists in Japan and Thailand, UNESCO and cultural heritage groups worldwide, Mutawakil said the Taliban was not trying to anger the international community had had its own reasons for the decree. "We are not destroying them [the statues] to face or to confront the world. We have our own internal issues and law according to which we are acting," Mutawakil told AFP. "If the world has concerns, we are ready to listen to them and we will tell them of our explanations if they want to listen. It is their right to be convinced or not to be convinced." The most famous of Afghanistan's statues are two ancient Buddhas, believed to be among the tallest in the world, carved into a sandstone mountain in the central province of Bamiyan. Almost 2,000 years old, the larger of the two stands 50 metres high. The Taliban decree also affects other pre-Islamic sites throughout Afghanistan, and many artefacts housed in Kabul Museum, which have reportedly been damaged, stolen or sold.