The two-day meeting, hosted by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Morocco, under the patronage of the Speaker of the upper house of the Moroccan Parliament (House of Advisors) and PAM President Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah, was dedicated to “Protection of World Cultural Heritage threatened with Destruction”.

Addressing the assembly, substitute member of the National Assembly’s standing delegation to PAM Nevena Stojanovic stressed that history shows that cultural heritage is often among the first casualties of conflicts and wars, and the destruction of cultural monuments, especially those of religious nature, has also proven to be an inevitable method of ethnic cleansing. She informed her PAM colleagues about the destruction of cultural heritage in Kosovo-Metohija in the last years, with a special focus on the destruction of Orthodox monasteries, churches and cemeteries in March 2004.

The National Assembly’s standing delegation suggested setting up a Standing International Expert Committee to overview the protection and restoration of cultural heritage in Kosovo-Metohija, which would mean the protection and restoration of religious, historical and cultural heritage of all the people in Kosovo-Metohija.

“Without the recovery of churches and monasteries and other cultural heritage, there can be no return of the exiled Serbian people to Kosovo, because they had always lived around their religious structures on that territory. Without the return of the 200 thousand exiled Serbs, there can be no Europe in Kosovo and no fundamental values of our civilisation. Demanding the restoration of the destroyed and damaged Serbian churches, monasteries, monuments, historical and cultural heritage, with respect of our country’s role, we also ask for the restoration and protection of Roman Catholic religious cultural heritage, and Ottoman Muslim heritage and monuments which mainly belong to the Albanians, Turks and Muslim ethnic groups of Slavic origin”, concluded Stojanovic.

The topic of PAM’s Third Standing Committee is part of the response to the urgent call by both the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council (Resolution S/RES/2199/2015) to international organizations to mobilise their constituencies and capabilities to protect the Cultural Heritage from destruction, looting, smuggling, and illegal trade by criminal and terrorist organisations.

In addition to Nevena Stojanovic, the National Assembly’s standing delegation to PAM also comprised substitute member Aleksandra Maletic.