Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to help Greece recover the contested Parthenon Marbles from the hands of Great Britain.
Xi Jinping made his pledge to help Greece retrieve the Parthenon Marbles from Great Britain during the last day of his state visit to Athens, where he met with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos. The two presidents and their wives met at the Acropolis Museum where Pavlopoulos asked Xi for support on Greece's diplomatic dispute with Britain.
During their museum tour, the Greek president said: "The place for the Parthenon Marbles is here and not in the British Museum. Imagine this place with the Marbles, and (then) imagine how the Marbles are at this moment in the British Museumguar, which is holding them illegally and against every sense of culture."
Xi replied: "I totally agree with you," pledging his support. "Not only will you have my support, we should work together. Because we have a lot of our own relics abroad, and we are trying as much as we can so that we can to bring these items back to their home country as soon as possible," added Xi.
The Parthenon Marbles, also called the Elgin Marbles, are sculptures that used to adorn the ancient Parthenon temple but were taken from the site more than 200 years ago by Lord Elgin, Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. It is currently housed at the British Museum in London.
Greece has been demanding the sculptures' return for decades but to no avail. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in the past that the statues "belong" to the British. In 2014, the British Museum argued that the Parthenon Marbles "are part of the world's shared heritage and transcend political boundaries."
According to China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, the country has signed agreements with more than 20 countries to combat the theft, excavation and illegal smuggling of cultural relics.
