TEHRAN – Iran’s tourism ministry is set to facilitate visits to former war zones in the west and southwest of the country.

“We are trying to promote and facilitate visits to [museums and former war zones and] sites that are associated with the Sacred Defense,” IRNA quoted the deputy tourism minister as saying on Tuesday.

“An approach is to offer integrated tours to visitors of historical, cultural, and ancient places in the west and southwest of the country,” Ali-Asghar Shalbafian said.

The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq, locally marked as Sacred Defense, was launched by the order of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein nearly 19 months after the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

For those interested in visiting an epitome of the frontline elsewhere from the former battlefields, Tehran embraces several destinations; the Sacred Defense Museum, Tehran Peace Museum, and Behesht-e Zahra—a graveyard where many of the martyrs are buried. The epic-scale Sacred Defense Museum does bargain something different in modern Iranian history where you can delve into wreckages of rockets, tanks, rifles, vessels, mortars, radars, air defense systems, grounded jets, military supplies, and artillery pieces amongst others.

The museum is equipped with a state-of-the-art visual system, including projections and video walls, while audio recordings relevant to each period contribute to its charm. The recreation of the liberation of the city of Khorramshahr using virtual exhibits and video projections is among the main features of the museum, where a replica of the Khorramshahr mosque is adorned with creamy and turquoise patterned tiles.

Amongst various border cities directly involved in the war, Khorramshahr is highly honored as a symbol of resistance during the war against Iraqi invaders. The port city is high on the ‘will go’ index of adventure travelers interested in such niche tourism.

When it comes to civilians, war destinations formerly were objects of interest for many photojournalists appearing solely on pages of crime, but now they can be traced within certain travel books and websites.

Experts say former war zones and museums are sometimes triggered to make guesses about the stories of people who lost their lives, displaced, wounded, captured, or lost their loved ones in those bitter moments of mankind.

The Iran-Iraq War was the second-longest war of the 20th century after the Vietnam War.

AFM