KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party patron-in-chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has urged the World Heritage Committee of Unesco to speed up work for declaring 18 more places in Pakistan World Heritage Sites to preserve the rich cultural and natural heritage of humanity.

On the eve of World Heritage Day being observed by Unesco on April 18, the PPP patron-in-chief pointed out that dry-core drilling had been started early this month at the Moenjodaro site to reveal the whole city that thrived 5,000 years ago.

The Unesco committee has so far declared six sites in Pakistan World Heritage Sites, according to a statement issued by the Bilawal House media cell on Thursday.

It said that Pakistan ratified the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1976 under the leadership of the then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, paving the way of marking Moenjodaro, Taxila, Buddhist ruins of Takht Bahi and the neighbouring city remains at Sahr-i-Bahlol, Fort and Shalamar Gardens in Lahore, Historical Monuments at Makli, Thatta, and Rohtas Fort as World Heritage Sites on the globe.

Pakistan is maintaining a list of 18 more heritage sites to be considered and declared World Heritage Sites by the Unesco committee, the statement added.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said he was personally monitoring the preservation of Moenjodaro, as being the inheritors of our rich culture and ancient civilisation the preservation of our heritage remains a national duty of all of us.

He appreciated Unesco and its World Heritage Committee for their research and hard work to protect and preserve the heritage sites as the shared wealth of humankind.