"Journalists may be allowed on Wednesday," Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil told a news conference. Large numbers of journalists have been waiting for an opportunity to see the destroyed statues near the central town of Bamiyan, whose demolition earlier this month caused worldwide outrage. The massive Buddhas, 53 metres (175 feet) and 38 metres high, were hewn out of a cliff face more than 1,500 years ago. "The statues had been left over from our ancestors as a wrong heritage. They were in clash with our beliefs," Taliban's reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar last month, issued a decree ordering his followers to destroy all statues as non-Islamic. Mr Muttawakil repeated the Taliban's view that its destruction of all statues was an internal issue and was not intended as an insult to Buddhism or other religions.

(Reuters)