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Palmyra may welcome tourists next summer, says governor

Militants who controlled Palmyra from May 2015 through March 2016 and from December 2016 through March 2017 destroyed a number of monuments

© REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

HOMS /Syria/, August 15. /TASS/. Syrian Palmyra will be ready to welcome its first tourists in the summer of 2019, Homs Governorate Governor Tal al-Barazi told reporters on Wednesday.

"Currently, the authorities have a project for restoring the ancient town of Palmyra from all damage done to it. We also have major offers from global powers to restore artefacts and historical value of Palmyra. I believe that by the summer of 2019 Palmyra will be fully ready to receive tourists," the governor said.

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Inside the National Museum of Palmyra after the IS invasion

He said offers to assist have come from UNESCO, Russia, Poland, Italy and other countries and agencies, as well as from European NGOs. "This is world history, and it doesn’t belong only to Syria," he stressed.

Palmyra, often referred to as the Bride of the Syrian Desert, was a notable center of commerce and culture at the crossing of trade routes in antiquity. It reached particular grandeur in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

A number of illustrious architectural monuments relate to that period. They survived two millennia but turned up in the epicenter of a debacle in the second decade of the 21st century.

UNESCO placed Palmyra on its list of world cultural heritage sights. The militants who controlled Palmyra from May 2015 through March 2016 and from December 2016 through March 2017 destroyed a number of monuments.

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