British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak triggered a diplomatic spat with Greece over the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles by canceling at the last-minute a one-on-one in London.
“I express my annoyance for the fact that the British Prime Minister canceled our scheduled meeting just hours before it was due to take place,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a Monday-night statement.
Their appointment had been set for midday yesterday.
Photo: AFP
It became impossible for the meeting between the two leaders to go ahead on account of Mitsotakis’ commentary regarding the historical antiquities, said one senior Conservative Party source, who asked to remain anonymous when discussing private matters.
“If I told you that you would cut the Mona Lisa in half, and you will have half of it at the Louvre and half of it at the British Museum, do you think your viewers would appreciate the beauty of the painting?” Mitsotakis had said on the BBC on Sunday, by way of reference to the sculptures’ removal from Athens’ acropolis, where others like them still stand.
The sculptures are housed in London’s British Museum and both countries claim them as their own. In recent years the sides had been moving closer to resolving the centuries-long feud by brokering an arrangement whereby they could be seen in Athens, from where they were taken by British diplomat Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.
Mitsotakis insisted in his statement that what he told the press did not contain anything that deviated from his previous stance.
“Greece’s positions on the issue of the Parthenon sculptures are well known,” he said. “I was hoping to have the opportunity to discuss them with my British counterpart as well, along with the major challenges of the international situation: Gaza, Ukraine, Climate crisis, migration.”
The Greeks received a call at about 6pm just as Mitsotakis’ meeting with UK opposition-party leader Keir Starmer was ending, said one person familiar with how the cancelation played out.
The Financial Times earlier reported that Starmer was privately not prepared to change the law concerning the sculptures, but would not stand in the way of a loan deal if one mutually acceptable to both the British Museum and the Greek government could be agreed.
Sunak trails the Labour leader by about 20 percentage points in polls ahead of an election expected next year. Starmer and Mitsotakis discussed the marbles during their meeting and both sides presented their arguments, one person said.
Mitsotakis’ comments were no different than what he has said in the past and reflect the Greeks’ fixed positions on the issue, a senior Greek official said, adding that in any case the matter does not concern the British government, but the British Museum.
Josh Lambkin from the Parthenon Project, which is working with the British Museum and Acropolis Museum in an effort to broker a deal, criticized Sunak’s decision.
“It’s a shame the British prime minister feels he can’t discuss the subject of the Elgin Marbles with the Greek prime minister, especially given how much both countries stand to gain from a sensible resolution on this matter,” he said.
The cancelation also risks a relationship that might have helped Sunak improve cooperation among European nations coping with a surge of asylum seekers.?
“If the prime minister isn’t able to meet with a European ally with whom Britain has important economic ties, this is further proof he isn’t able to provide the serious economic leadership our country requires,” a Labour Party spokesperson said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion