The UN´s cultural agency, the UNESCO, on Friday added a ruined Armenian city inside Turkey´s closed border with the ex-Soviet state to its World Heritage list.

Eight other sites across the world were also elevated to the list ranking.

The site of Ani, which lies outside the Turkish city of Kars, was the capital of an Armenian kingdom around the end of the first millenium, before its conquest in 1064 by Seljuk forces hastened a decline then completed by the Mongol conquest and an earthquake.

(With inputs from AFP)