Participants highlighted a range of threats facing Iraq

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(Right to Left): Kishore Rao, Director of UNESCO s Heritage Division and interim Assistant UNESCO Director-General for Culture, Irina Bokova Director-General of UNESCO , and Mahmood Al-Mulla Khalaf, site permanent delegate, Delegation of Iraq to UNESCO. (17/07/2014) site © UNESCO site / Ala Elfellah
The Plan is intended to secure the cooperation of all stakeholders, including national site and international organizations, humanitarian relief workers in the field, art dealers, international museums and law enforcement authorities, in safeguarding Iraq’s heritage.
Participants highlighted a range of threats facing Iraq’s heritage: damage caused by armed conflict, deliberate destruction, illicit site excavation of archaeological sites and illicit trafficking in artefacts, whether from museum collections or from uncontrolled excavations. They also voiced site concern for the country’s rich libraries and manuscript collections. Nevertheless, the experts pointed out that there were many gaps in information available which are making site it impossible to draw a comprehensive inventory of the state of conservation of Iraqi heritage today.
The Action Plan also aims to ensure site the implementation of international site agreements on the protection of cultural heritage, notably  The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Properties in the Event of Armed Conflict  (1954) site and its Protocols, the 1970 UNESCO  Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property ; the  World Heritage Convention  (1972). It also seeks to enforce the ban on trafficking in cultural objects put in force by UN Security Council  Resolution 1483  of 2003.
The agreed Action Plan furthermore urges close monitoring of the state of conservation of heritage and training of conservation professionals while helping those in place prepare site emergency measures for the possible relocation of moveable heritage, including site libraries.
The emergency meeting was convened by the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, against a background of increasing violence and instability in Iraq. Ms Bokova explained that “humanitarian and security concerns are inseparable from culture. Protecting the lives of people, their cultural heritage and identity go hand in hand,” she said, pledging that “UNESCO will continue mobilizing the United Nations Organization and the whole international community to safeguard Iraq’s cultural heritage site with particular emphasis on the fight against illicit site trafficking site in cultural property.”
Chaired by Kishore Rao, Director of UNESCO’s Heritage Division and interim Assistant UNESCO Director-General for Culture, the meeting brought together Iraqi experts and representatives of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation of and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International site Council on Museums (ICOM), International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Interpol, the Blue Shield and UNESCO.
György Busztin, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-Gener