UK accuses Greece of breaking Parthenon promise on PM’s visit

By Andrew MacAskill, Alistair Smout and Renee Maltezou

LONDON/ATHENS (Reuters) -A row between Britain and Greece over the ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures escalated on Tuesday, with both sides blaming the other for the cancellation of a planned meeting between their two leaders.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled Tuesday’s meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis after his office said the two sides had previously agreed that it should not be used as a public platform “to relitigate long, long settled matters”.

A Greek government official speaking on condition of anonymity said that there was no such agreement. Earlier a Greek government spokesman called the cancellation unprecedented and disrespectful.

“It’s simply the case that if assurances are given and they’re not adhered to, that there are consequences for that,” Sunak’s spokesman told reporters.

Greece has repeatedly asked the British Museum to permanently return the 2,500-year-old sculptures that British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the Parthenon temple in the early 19th century when he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

About half the surviving marble works are in London, and the rest in a museum under the Acropolis in Athens.

Appearing on the BBC over the weekend, Mitsotakis compared the separation of the sculptures to cutting the Mona Lisa in half, a characterisation rejected by the British government.

Both Britain and Greece said that the dispute jeopardised the opportunity to discuss global issues, including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, migration and the climate crisis.

However, Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis later said his country did not want to escalate the row or let it spoil normally good relations between the countries.

PLOT TWIST

Sunak’s decision to cancel the meeting was also criticised by some British opposition parties and a campaign group backed by British politicians from different parties who want to resolve the issue.

The group, the Parthenon Project, has proposed a deal that would see the sculptures reunified in Athens – without Britain and Greece needing to agree on who owns them.

Ed Vaizey, a former Conservative culture minister who advises the group, said that Sunak’s action was a “plot twist” given Britain’s previous stance that resolving the issue was a matter for the British Museum itself.

“The prime minister has put himself at the front and centre of row that he didn’t really need to put himself at the front and centre of,” Vaizey told Sky News. “I don’t think the prime minister needed really to intervene in this way and it hasn’t particularly helped our relationships with Greece.”

Britain’s government has long cited a law that prevents the British Museum from disposing of items in its collection in most circumstances.

Asked if the government was concerned that other countries might also seek restitution of items if a deal was reached to return the marbles, Sunak’s spokesperson said: “We do think it is potentially a slippery slope, and that’s not something that we would support.”

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