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Greece's prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, today reiterated calls for the return of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon sculptures to Athens from the museum in Britain.
In his first public statement on the matter since November, Mitsotakis said his government had been in talks with the Chairman of the British Museum about a deal to return them to the Acropolis Museum in the Greek capital.
"Let me be clear, we will insist on their reunion for many reasons. But one, in my mind, is the most important: only by looking together, in the shadow of the Acropolis, can we truly appreciate the immensity of their cultural importance", he said.
Athens has repeatedly called on the British Museum to permanently return the 2,500-year-old sculptures, known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles, which British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the Parthenon temple in 1806, during a period when Greece was under Ottoman rule. In November, during an interview with the BBC in London, Mitsotakis compared dividing the sculptures to cutting the Mona Lisa in half, a characterization rejected by the British government.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak later canceled a planned meeting with Mitsotakis, accusing him of breaking a promise not to use his trip as an opportunity to advocate for the return of the sculptures. Greece has said it would be willing to lend the assets of the British Museum in exchange for the opportunity to temporarily display the sculptures in Athens. The British Museum has said it would consider loaning the sculptures to Greece if it accepted the British Museum's ownership of the sculptures.
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