US and Iran must protect cultural sites, UNESCO says after Trump threat

Both Iran and the United States must observe a convention obliging states to preserve cultural sites, the UN's cultural agency said on Monday after President Donald Trump threatened to target Iranian cultural sites.

UNESCO director general Audrey Azoulay said at a meeting with the Iranian ambassador to the organisation that both Tehran and Washington had signed a 1972 convention obliging states not to undertake "any deliberate measures which might damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage" of other states.