In remarks made at Guardian, Lina Mendoni, the Greek Minister of Culture, says that her country would be ready to “ fill the void » left by the Parthenon statues exhibited at the British Museum in London if they were to be returned to Athens, as Greece has been requesting for decades. A proposal which comes as relations between the two capitals have recently become tense over these same sculptures.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Athens, Joel Bronner
The return to Athens of the marbles from the Parthenon temple, the country’s cultural and tourist showcase: Greece makes it a question of national identity. If the negotiations do not move forward, the country wants to maintain a certain pressure in the media space by offering to the British Museum in London to recover them, in return by lending other ancient works as part of temporary exhibitions.
Basically, the British Museum, which purchased the statues in the 14th century before the birth of modern Greece, claims to be the owner. For its part, Athens pleads for their return near their original monument in the name of cultural coherence.
Read alsoParthenon friezes: Greece’s ruined hopes
London on the defensive
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greek Prime Minister, already stated in November on the BBC that the question was not for him “ that of property » but rather that of “ the reunification of the works “. “ If I told you to cut the Mona Lisa in half and display half of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and the other half in the British Museum, do you think visitors would appreciate the beauty of the painting as much? ? In a way, this is exactly what happened in the case of the Parthenon “, he affirmed.
These comments irritated British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to the point of making him immediately cancel a meeting with his Greek counterpart. The question of the return to Athens of the Parthenon sculptures, although almost as old as modern Greece, still does not seem close, at present, to reaching an epilogue.
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