05/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - Anna Lindh, President of the EU Council, expressed her "dismay" and "feeling of powerlessness" on learning that the Talibans had begun to destroy pre-Islamic statues and "other cultural treasures". Recalling the declaration the Fifteen made on this subject (see EUROPE of 3 March, p.5), she said that Taliban representatives had initially provided the EU with assurances that the decree on the destruction of the monuments had not actually been put into practice. The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, invited international organisations to take "concerted actions with a view to safeguarding this common heritage", by opening "a constructive dialogue with the Taliban Supreme Leader", and said that "no political or religious power has the right to deliberately destroy cultural property that belongs to humankind".