‘Assault on humanity’s shared heritage’: Iran warns UNESCO about Israeli threats to national railway

Iran’s minister of culture has warned UNESCO over threats issued by the Israeli regime against the Iranian national railway, a World Heritage site.

In a letter addressed to the international body on Tuesday, Minister of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts, Reza Salehi-Amiri, identified the railway as “among the most prominent examples of contemporary architecture and engineering in the country, constructed over many years.”

Earlier, Tel Aviv threatened to target the railway, which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List five years ago during the organization’s 44th session in China, with full consensus from member states.

Salehi-Amiri described the threats as a direct assault on humanity’s shared heritage and called for UNESCO to take an explicit, immediate, and deterrent stance.

The railway stretches across the Iranian provinces of Golestan, Mazandaran, Semnan, Tehran, Qom, Markazi, Lorestan, and Khuzestan, passing diverse landscapes, including the Hirkanian forests, also a UNESCO World Heritage site, in northern Iran.

“It is a prime example of territorial connectivity and the civilizational memory of a nation,” the letter noted.

The minister cautioned, “Any aggression, destruction, or attack on this valuable site constitutes an attack on the cultural heritage of the Iranian people and damages an asset that belongs to all humanity.”

“From moral, human, and international cultural law perspectives, such actions are strongly condemned.”

He, meanwhile, highlighted the risks posed to civilians, noting that any attack targeting the railway would have extensive humanitarian consequences.

Salehi-Amiri strongly discouraged silence in the face of such threats and asserted that international inaction would undermine the international system for protecting humanity’s culture and history.

According to Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage, more than 130 historic sites have already been damaged or destroyed as a result of unprovoked Israeli-American aggression targeting the country.

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