Daniel Leal / AFP
As the prime ministers of Britain and Greece meet in London on Tuesday for an agenda expected to include the Parthenon Marbles, talks with the British Museum are said to be closer than ever to an agreement for their return to Athens.
On his first visit to Britain since Keir Starmer's Labour government came to power in July, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis says he's "firmly convinced" that the priceless sculptures will return to Athens more than two centuries after their departure for London.
"I am firmly convinced that the friezes will be returned. Discussions with the British Museum are continuing," Mitsotakis told ANT1 TV on Saturday.
But he stressed that the talks in search of a solution to a historical dispute that has poisoned bilateral relations for over 50 years "do not concern the British government, but the British Museum".
UK officials say that the government's position on the Marbles has not changed and that they remain a matter for the British Museum.
A spokesman for Starmer said the prime minister "looks forward to welcoming Mitsotakis to Downing Street, "where he’ll underline the importance of a strong UK-Greece bilateral relationship.
"He will discuss recent joint work on tackling the shared challenge of illegal migration and other priorities, including support for Ukraine, (and) a ceasefire in Gaza for regional stability in the Middle East," the spokesman told reporters.
Britain's Sky News on Monday reported that Mitsotakis and his foreign minister George Gerapetritis had held "private meetings" with British Museum officials, including museum chairman George Osborne, on "two or three occasions" this year.
Mitsotakis' spokesman later in the day denied that the Greek leader had taken part in private meetings, but said the issue would "obviously" come up in the meeting with Starmer.
According to British media, Starmer is much more open to the return of the ancient masterpieces to Athens than his predecessor, Rishi Sunak.
The latter had dealt a diplomatic slap in the face to Mitsotakis a year ago by cancelling a planned meeting between them at the last minute.
The move came after Mitsotakis made comments that apparently upset Downing Street. The Greek, an ardent campaigner for the return of the Marbles, had told the BBC ahead the Sunak meeting that keeping part of the Parthenon friezes outside Greece was tantamount to "cut(ting) the Mona Lisa in half".
Starmer, then head of the opposition, later told the House of Commons that Sunak had "obviously lost his marbles" in cancelling the meeting with Mitsotakis.
Athens has for decades demanded the return of the 75-metre-long friezes, a campaign revived in the 1980s by Greek singer and actress Melina Mercouri during her stint as minister for culture.
The Greek authorities maintain that the sculptures were looted in 1802 by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
But London claims that the sculptures were "legally acquired" by Elgin, who sold them to the British Museum.
A 1963 British law prevents the museum from giving away treasures.
In the UK, where according to a YouGov poll in 2023, a majority of Britons are in favour of restitution, opponents fear a domino effect, with claims from several countries piling up.
A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Parthenon atop the Acropolis in Athens is a temple built in the 5th century BCE in homage to the goddess Athena.
In the course of its long history, it has been transformed into a church, a mosque and a munitions depot under the Ottoman Empire.
The new Acropolis Museum, inaugurated in 2009, has reserved a space for the Parthenon friezes on the first floor of the building, where the four sides of the temple have been faithfully recreated to scale.
The missing friezes have been replaced by casts.
The Acropolis is the most visited archaeological site in Greece. Its popularity with tourists has soared in recent years to the extent that Greek authorities have had to introduce reservation slots to contain summer crowds.
In 2023, almost four million people visited the site known to most Greeks as the Sacred Rock, up 31.1 percent year-on-year.
From January to the end of July, compared with the same period in 2023, the increase was 25.9 percent, or 2.8 million visitors.
Founded in 1753, the British Museum houses a collection of eight million objects, including the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon friezes.
© Agence France-Presse
