Gürcan
Balik, Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Turkey to UNESCO, and Kishore Rao,
Director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre, on 17 July 2013 signed a Plan of
Operations for a $1.2 million project to safeguard the Turkish World Heritage
site of Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia. Isao Kiso,
Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Japan was also present on the occasion.
The three-year international cooperation
project—Safeguarding the Rock-hewn Churches of Cappadocia, Turkey:
Conservation of Rock Structures and Wall Paintings—is generously funded by
Japan’s Funds-in-Trust for the Preservation of World Cultural Heritage and has
been designed in close cooperation with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and
Tourism.
The project follows on an international
expert mission to the World Heritage area in Cappadocia in 2010. After
extensive consultations with local heritage professionals and managers, the
experts identified 22 painted rock-hewn churches that require immediate
safeguarding measures, because of threats to the Outstanding Universal Value
which merited the inscription of the property on the World Heritage List in
1985.
Subject to a further endorsement by the
Turkish authorities later this year, the Plan of Operations includes a set of
activities aimed at the safeguarding of the property: the complete conservation
of the Church of Uzumlu in the Red Valley as a pilot project; research;
capacity building; information management; an international seminar and
publications; as well as a workshop and advisory mission for the preliminary
work on the management plan of the property.
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