Greek Leader Will Ask Johnson for U.K. to Return Elgin Marbles

(Bloomberg) -- Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is headed to London to meet Boris Johnson and plans to explicitly tell the prime minister that the Elgin Marbles must be returned to Athens. 

It’s an emotional bone of contention for Greece, and one that has often spilled over into the political arena. At the start of the 19th century, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, removed the ancient sculptures from the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis hill and shipped them to England by sea. For 200 years, successive generations of famous Greeks and politicians have demanded they should be given back.

The new Acropolis Museum, inaugurated in 2009, could house them. The British Museum is loath to renounce one of its biggest tourist draws.

“They’re here because they were stolen,” Mitsotakis said in an ITV interview on Tuesday ahead of the meeting. “I don’t like to talk about the return of marbles, I like to talk about the reunification of the marbles.”  

The Greek premier plans to make his case by saying that the general argument as to why these marbles belong to the British Museum is outdated. “We want the sculptures back for good. So we won’t settle for a loan.” 

But he signaled some flexibility, suggesting that Greece could offer the British Museum artifacts that have never left the country as part of the rotating collections. “If there is a will I’m sure we can find a solution,” he said.

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