Negotiations are underway in Austria to return the fragments of the Parthenon to Greece.

The Vienna Museum is in talks aimed at returning the two marble parts of the Parthenon to Greece, the Austrian foreign minister said on Tuesday.

His Greek colleague expressed the hope that this would help in negotiations with the UK over its much larger number of Parthenon fragments, which bear the name “Elgin Marbles”.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna has a small collection of marble from the Acropolis – just two fragments of the north frieze of the Parthenon. But Greece hopes that with each agreement to return items to Athens, there will be a “positive momentum” in negotiations to return items stored elsewhere.

“I am very pleased that technical negotiations are underway between the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Acropolis Museum on the return of the Parthenon friezes,” Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said at a press conference with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias. “I really hope that the negotiations will go very quickly and the fragments will be exhibited in Athens.”

Dendias said the talks were important in the context of discussions on larger collections, especially the collections of the British Museum in London.

Since gaining independence in 1832, Greece has repeatedly called for the return of sculptures swindled from the Parthenon Temple in Athens in the early 19th century when Greece was under Ottoman rule by British diplomat Lord Elgin.

“The regional government of Sicily in 2022 and Pope Francis in 2023 returned part of the Parthenon sculptures to Greece, so this will be the third part, and this is of great, great importance to us,” Dendias said. “Apart from the very fact of this, we believe it will create momentum that we could use in our discussions with London.” [Рейтер]

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