PAKISTAN FAILED TO PERSUADE THE TALIBAN TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF PRE-ISLAMIC MONUMENTS








ISLAMABAD, March 11. /RIA Novosti correspondent Vladimir Shreter/. The attempt of Pakistani Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider to convince the Taliban's spiritual leader Mullah Omar to revise his decision on destroying the pre-Islamic monuments in the territory of Afghanistan has failed. 


	A number of world leaders, including the heads of several Moslem countries, asked Pakistan to use its influence on the Taliban to persuade them to revise their decision to destroy historic monuments which belong to the whole of humanity.  Pakistan is one of the three countries which maintains diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime. 


	At the instructions of Pakistani leader General Pervez  Musharraf, the country's Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider  arrived on Saturday in Kandahar (the city in which the  headquarters of the Taliban is located). According to the press release of the Pakistani Information Ministry, Moinuddin Haider "expressed to the Taliban the concern of the government and the people of Pakistan, as well as of the international community,  including a number of the Moslem states, about the adopted edict to destroy the statues."  Mullah Omar stated in reply that the Taliban's decision  cannot be revised, since this matter "concerns religious  questions and is an internal affair of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." The members of the Pakistani delegation who  accompanied Moinuddin Haider,  told the journalists that the  Taliban leadership had informed them that "two giant statues of the Buddha in the Bamiyan province had already been destroyed by a quarter."  According to other data, the statues have been  practically destroyed in full. -O- (kos/ter)  11/03/01    11:58