Tugging on patriot heart-strings and setting off a proverbial spot fire, he told the host of the BBC\u2019s flagship Sunday morning political show, Laura Kuenssberg, that the row over the fate of the 2500-year-old Parthenon Sculptures had moved beyond ownership to reunification.<\/p>\n
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A visitor takes a picture of sculptures that are part of the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum in London.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cWhere can you best appreciate what is essentially one monument?\u201d Mitsotakis, who hails from a Greek political dynasty dating back to the 19th century, asked. \u201cIt\u2019s as if I had told you, I\u2019d cut the Mona Lisa in half, and you would have half of it at the Louvre and half of it at the British Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n Mitsotakis added he would keep pushing to return the sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, to Greece and their original setting.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a patient man, and we\u2019ve waited hundreds of years; I will persist in these discussions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The following day his long-planned one-on-one meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was abruptly cancelled by Downing Street, with the Conservative Party leader said to be \u201cinfuriated\u201d by the Greek leader\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n The moon rises in the sky behind the Parthenon at the ancient Acropolis hill, in Athens.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cWhen requesting a meeting with the prime minister, the Greek government provided reassurances that they would not use the visit as a public platform to re-litigate long-settled matters relating to the ownership of the sculptures,\u201d the prime minister\u2019s spokesman said, adding Sunak felt it would not be productive to hold a meeting dominated by that issue, \u201crather than the important challenges facing Greek and British people\u201d.<\/p>\n A 200-year cultural disagreement<\/strong><\/p>\n Two centuries after they were hauled from the ruins of the Parthenon temple in Athens by a British nobleman, the treasures are among the greatest in the British Museum.<\/p>\n The fifth-century-BC statues went on display in 1817 after they were removed by agents working for Lord Elgin, the then ambassador to the Ottoman court. Housed in a dedicated room, the sculptures of Olympian gods and goddesses, centaurs and warriors, are unmatched examples of the artistry and ambition of fifth-century BC Athens.<\/p>\n Visitors look at sculptures that are part of the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum in London.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n The showstopper is the Frieze, the marble relief decorated with men and women in a stately procession, which ran around the 160 metre-long inner colonnade of the Parthenon. Lord Elgin brought 75 metres of it to London, the largest surviving portion.<\/p>\n Greece, which believes the marbles were stolen by Elgin and belongs to the Greek people, wants them returned to the magnificent new Acropolis Museum in Athens. A formal request for their permanent return was first made in 1983.<\/p>\n In May, after Mitsotakis secured around 40 per cent of the vote at the general election, he later told the British press: \u201cWe will never recognise that these sculptures are owned, legally owned by the British Museum… But again, we have to be constructive, and we have to be innovative if a solution is to be found.\u201d<\/p>\n Although public and political opinion has shifted, the British have long argued that Elgin legally purchased the marbles and received a firman (a decree issued by the sovereign in historical Islamic states) from the Ottoman Sultan. A long-running defence is had the marbles remained in Athens, they likely would have shared the same fate as other ancient sculptures that were destroyed and mutilated.<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer, left, meets with the Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis in London.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n A 1963 Act of Parliament stops the museum permanently handing back the sculptures. A string of British governments, including Sunak\u2019s, have vowed not to change the legislation, as has Labour Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer, who the polls predict will take office at the next general election.<\/p>\n Starmer, who met with the Greek prime minister last week, told him he would not stand in the way of a mooted loan deal involving part of the Parthenon sculptures being sent to Athens. Some have speculated this meeting was the source of Sunak\u2019s \u201chissy fit\u201d.<\/p>\n A diplomatic blunder or domestic political wedge?<\/strong><\/p>\n Pavlos Marinakis, the Greek government spokesman, said Sunak\u2019s decision to call off his first-ever bilateral talks with Mitsotakis at the \u201c11th hour\u201d had been \u201cremarkably disrespectful.\u201d The Greek foreign minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, who accompanied Mitsotakis on his trip, was even blunter. \u201cThis is unheard of,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a massive diplomatic indiscretion. Even Israel and Hamas communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who this week cancelled a meeting with the Greek prime minister.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Getty<\/cite><\/p>\n Margaritis Schinas, European Commission Vice President, said it was \u201cas un-British as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n George Osborne, a former UK chancellor and now chair of the British Museum, has been trying for more than a year to negotiate with Mitsotakis over an innovative loan deal that would entail some of the Frieze loaned to the Acropolis Museum.<\/p>\n In exchange, some Greek treasures would be sent on loan to the museum in Bloomsbury in central London. Over time, different parts of the sculpture would be put on display in Greece.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope we\u2019ll find a way to partner with Greece so that a portion of the Marbles spend part of their time in Athens\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009and we see more of their treasures in return,\u201d Osborne wrote in The Spectator<\/em> earlier this month.<\/p>\n Some believe Sunak\u2019s snub this week was less about the marbles and more an attempt to paint the Labour leader Starmer as either unpatriotic or weak.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is clear that Sunak is in a bind, under pressure ahead of the upcoming elections and that pressure led him to this diplomatic transgression,\u201d said Tassos Hadjivassiliou, a foreign policy aide to Mitsotakis, told The Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n William Hague, the former foreign secretary, it was \u201cnot a great advert for diplomacy\u201d as others accused Sunak of handing Labour a \u201cfree hit\u201d.<\/p>\n He told Times Radio that the meeting with Mitsotakis should have gone ahead because the two countries had a \u201check of a lot more [to talk about] than the Elgin Marbles\u201d. But he insisted Sunak was a \u201cvery calm, rational guy\u201d and would not have cancelled the meeting without good reason.<\/p>\n A matter of trust?<\/strong><\/p>\n Since the days of Lord Byron, the romantic poet who was an early critic of their removal, the fate of the marbles has been bitterly contested.<\/p>\n Both sides of the debate appeal to a kind of cultural nationalism. They became part of Britain\u2019s cultural heritage and have been displayed prominently in the heart of London so that more than six million visitors from around the world annually can study, appreciate and copy their workmanship at close range.<\/p>\n Boris Johnson, while prime minister, said last year: \u201cThose gods and heroes came to our country in 1812 as refugees from the Ottoman kiln. They were going to be melted down to make cement.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Shutterstock<\/cite><\/p>\n There are fears within the British establishment that the only way the marbles could ever be temporarily returned to Athens was if there was a cultural version of a hostage swap, where Athens would loan Greek treasures to London as \u201ccollateral\u201d.<\/p>\n It could be a political problem for Mitsotakis to accept a \u201cloan\u201d of what he regards as Greek property, but the British Museum could agree to ship to Athens potentially one-third or more of the marbles for a set time period, such as 10 years. But earlier this year Richard Lambert, Osborne\u2019s predecessor as British Museum chair, told the Financial Times<\/em>: \u201cMy assumption was that once loaned, they would not come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, Italy returned a fragment from the Parthenon that for more than 200 years had been on display at a museum in Sicily. And in December, the Vatican announced it would give three Parthenon fragments to the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, who is expected to pass them on to the Acropolis Museum.<\/p>\n Momentum on the side of Athens<\/strong><\/p>\n David Hill, the former chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, has gained widespread global recognition for his unwavering advocacy for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures. He said Sunak\u2019s behaviour had diminished Britain\u2019s position and only strengthened that of Greece.<\/p>\n \u201cMore has happened on the return of the Parthenon Sculptures in the last two years than during the last 200 years,\u201d Hill, the one-time chair of the International Association for the Return of the Parthenon Sculpture, said.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we have negotiations directly between the chairman of the British Museum and the prime minister of Greece \u2013 it\u2019s unprecedented and encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n He said a major boost was also the about-face of Britain\u2019s two major conservative newspapers, The Times<\/em>, and The Telegraph<\/em> which have both editorialised in favour of the marbles\u2019 return.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think they can go resile from that position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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