...  it took me some time to understand that, by the definition “Assad’s Congress”, you were probably referring to the international colloquium “New visions and proposals for the resilience of the Syrian heritage”, which took place in Damascus, at the National Museum, on December 10th-11th. The colloquium was attended by several colleagues who worked in Syria for a long time: Giorgio and Marilyn Buccellati, Annie Caubet, Pierre Leriche, Balázs Major, Bartosz Markowski, Stefania Mazzoni, Ségolčne de Pontbriand, Mirjo Salvini, Marek Olszewski, Yves Ubelmann, besides Davide Nadali and myself, representing also Paolo Matthiae. ICOMOS was represented by Samir Abdulac from France and Stefan Simon from Yale, while Mrs Cristina Menegazzi of UNESCO could not attend, because she was engaged elsewhere. I frankly cannot understand the problem, but I wish to point out some facts.
	1) In 2013 there was in Amman the first meeting organized by UNESCO for the protection of Syrian heritage, where Graham Philip, Giorgio Buccellati, the directors of IFPO and of the Damascus branch of the German Archaeological Institute and myself also attended. In that occasion we officially recognized that the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums of Damascus was the UNESCO partner in the protection of Syrian cultural heritage.
	2) Other meetings followed, in Jordan, in Paris and this year in Berlin, while UNESCO, and particularly ICCROM, organized several stages for the colleagues of the DGAM, in Beirut, or via Skype.
	3) In 2015 there was a scientific meeting with all the colleagues of the DGAM in Beirut, where several foreign colleagues were also present and now, in 2016, a similar meeting was held in Damascus.
	4) The DGAM is a cultural organization, where people of different religious and political beliefs cooperate together for the protection of their common cultural heritage, and this attitude is acknowledged by UNESCO and other prestigious international organizations. In fact, Prof. Maamoun Abdulkerim, actual Director of the DGAM, was awarded the First International Cultural Heritage Rescue Prize in 2014, by a Scientific Committee including Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund, and Catherine Anne Robert-Hauglustaine, director-general of the International Council of Museums, Mounir Bouchenaki, Noah Charney, Director of ARCA, Association for Research into Crime against Art, Stefano De Caro, Director-General of ICCROM, Jack Lang, former Minister of culture in France, President of the Institut du Monde Arabe di Parigi, Giovanni Nistri, former Commander of the Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Artistico, Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Great Library of Alexandria, Peter Watson, writer.
	As to what is really happening in Syria in general, and in Aleppo in particular, I think we should wait to have more controlled news and not rely to the Internet, where many pieces of news are artfully created and diffused.