Greek PM Confident of Ending Centuries-Old Elgin Marbles Dispute
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(Bloomberg) -- Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is confident that the contentious issue of the Parthenon Marbles will be resolved during his current term as the country’s leader.
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As he begins a visit to the UK, Mitsotakis told the BBC on Sunday that he plans to raise the issue with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and leader of the opposition Keir Starmer.
“We have not made as much progress as I would like,” Mitsotakis said. “But I am a patient man. We have waited hundreds of years and I will persist.”
The Greek leader equated having the ancient sculptures housed in the UK rather than in Athens to splitting the Mona Lisa in half.
“If told you that you would cut the Mona Lisa in half, and you will have half of it at the Louvre and half of it at the British Museum, do you think your viewers would appreciate the beauty of the painting?”
Read more: Greek PM to Raise Elgin Marbles With Sunak, Starmer in UK
London’s British Museum and Greece’s Acropolis Museum have been trying to broker an agreement that would see the artifacts — known to many in the UK as the Elgin Marbles — sent to Athens, from where they were removed in the early 19th century. The sculptures were taken from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time.
Read more: Vatican Returns Parthenon Sculptures to Greece After Centuries
The Greek premier’s trip will be mainly focused on promoting the national economy, which recently regained the investment-grade status that it lost 13 years ago and is growing faster than most of its European peers. Mitsotakis said Greece had cut taxes and driven up growth at a time when the rest of Europe was raising taxes.
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