She said that the State Commission and the General Directorate for the Protection and Use of Objects of Cultural Heritage under the Uzbek Culture Ministry have prepared and submitted a project to build a mausoleum on the burial site of Uzbekistan’s first President and the founding father of our country’s state independence, Islam Karimov.

“In the meantime, Uzbekistan’s Permanent Delegation to UNESCO is working in close liaison with UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), keeping these organizations abreast of the project and its progress,” she added.

She said that the project was studied by the World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS. Last December experts of these international organizations visited the territory adjacent to the Hazrat Khizr Mosque in Samarkand to familiarize themselves with the location of the future mausoleum.

The officials of the organizations sent their recommendations to the Uzbek side with regard to undertaking the necessary work in line with UNESCO’s criteria for minimizing the project’s impact on the historical appearance of the World Heritage Site.

“We are glad that this process is developing according to plan and hope that direct construction work on the mausoleum will get under way very soon,” she said.