VIENNA, December 9. /TASS/. Russian Ministry of Culture believes the ending of hostilities in Syria is essential for a launch of tangible efforts to restore the ruined monuments in Palmyra, Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said here on Friday.

"Dr. Piotrovsky (Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director General of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg - TASS) and I visited Palmyra in May," he said. "We saw with our own eyes the situation there was awful. Before any serious restoration begins there, it’s important to stop combat operations."

He said it in a comment on Dr. Piotrovsky’s recommendation to the Culture Ministry to initiate the setting-up of a commission that will coordinate the restoration efforts in Palmyra.

"We support the idea and our Ministry’s commission made a trip to Palmyra during last summer," Medinsky said, adding that a multitude of historic monuments in Palmyra needed restoration but it was impossible to launch the works amidst artillery shelling.

Dr. Piotrovsky made public an idea for the Culture Ministry to initiate the setting-up of a commission for restoration of the monuments of history and culture in Syria. He said it on December 2 while addressing the International Cultural Forum in St Petersburg.

"A very big number of people are taking part in an effort to remind the world, to raise alarm in the whole world in order to rally some sort of assistance to the restoration of Syrian monuments," Dr. Piotrovsky said.

"A necessity to coordinate efforts is already ripe and that’s why I’d like to start off with an initiative to set up a special commission that will steer assistance to the restoration of monuments in Syria," he said. "It should include the archeologists who have already worked in Palmyra."