The Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic bridge is the second monument in Bosnia that UNESCO has recognized, after the Old Bridge in Mostar.

Considered a masterpiece of Ottoman architecture and engineering, the Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic was built at the end of the 16th century in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad on the orders of the Ottoman Sultan’s Bosnia-born Grand Vizier Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic.

The stone bridge is 179.5 meters (589 feet) long and has 11 arches.

UNESCO has recognized its “outstanding universal value,” UNESCO Director Koichiro Matsuura said in Sarajevo, where he was presenting authorities with a certificate on the listing of the bridge.

“Its cultural value transcends both national and cultural borders,” he said.

The bridge connects the two banks of the Drina, which throughout history has marked the border between Serbia and Bosnia.

Bosnian writer Ivo Andric, who received the 1961 Nobel prize for literature, wrote a book called “The Bridge over the Drina River,” which described the building of the bridge and life in Bosnia under the Ottoman Empire.

During Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, Visegrad was a site where war crimes were committed by Bosnian Serbs against the town’s Muslim population. Some 3,000 Muslim Bosnians were killed, including 121 children. Visegrad is now a Bosnian Serb town.

During Tuesday’s ceremony in Sarajevo to mark the bridge’s listing as a World Heritage Site, Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic said that those who survived that part of the bridge’s history “deserve our respect.”

Matsuura’s visit to Visegrad was canceled for security reasons, however, after The Association of Women Victims of War — a mainly Muslim Bosnian group — placed a memorial placard on the bridge to remember the war victims.

The World Heritage List includes 851 properties that UNESCO deems worth preserving for their cultural or natural value. Sites on the list are eligible for funding and technical assistance from UNESCO to help with protection and preservation.

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