Sunak cancels Greek PM meeting in Elgin Marbles row
Sunak cancels Greek PM meeting in Elgin Marbles row
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who wants the Parthenon Sculptures returned, is "disappointed" the meeting has been called off.
A diplomatic row has broken out between the British and Greek governments over the Parthenon Sculptures,
I mean, it's not really "broken out" so much as "continued for the past 200 years".
Give them back
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The cancellation came a day after Mr Mitsotakis told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that the marbles should be returned, as having some of the artefacts in London and the rest in Athens was like cutting the Mona Lisa in half.
"The prime minister was looking forward to discussing a range of topics of mutual interest including the Israel-Gaza conflict, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, climate change, as well as common challenges such as migration, and of course the Parthenon Sculptures."
The British government confirmed the cancellation and offered the Greek PM a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden instead.
"Keir Starmer is clearly keen to ignore the contributions generations of British taxpayers have made to keep them safe and share them with the world," one party source claimed.
The British Museum's Chair of Trustees, George Osborne, who is the former chancellor, has previously said he is looking to find "some kind of arrangement to allow some of the sculptures to spend some of their time in Greece".
Speaking to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in October, Mr Osborne said any deal would have to see "objects from Greece coming here" for the first time.
The original article contains 741 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Welp, looks like Mitsokakis squandered an opportunity for serious discussion for some domestic points-scoring.
Just what the worlds needs now.
So, a modicum of looking into the background of this renders the following:
- These statues were removed from Greece by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s, while Greece was under Ottoman occupation
- The legality and legitimacy of these removals is, at the very least, questionable
- No watertight evidence exists to corroborate the claim of Lord Elgin that he had official permission
- Greece has been repeatedly requesting a return of these statues since 1835
- In 2021 UNESCO concluded that the UK government had an obligation to return these statues
- Negotiations between Greece and the UK are ongoing
Sorry, the only person who has squandered anything here is Rishi Sunak.