Turkey to hand over Iraqi artifacts seized in Istanbul to Baghdad
Iraqi artifacts. Photo: Sputnik
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Turkish authorities announced on Thursday it is preparing to hand over ancient gold coins seized in Istanbul to Iraq, according to a statement of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism reported by the Anadolu Agency.
The Turkish authorities seized five ancient gold coins in the possession of a collector claiming he bought them at a public auction outside the country, the statement clarified.
The statement indicated that investigations conducted by the Turkish authorities showed that the five gold coins belong to Iraq and were smuggled out of the country illegally.
The authority responsible for archaeological museums in Istanbul is expected to hand over the gold coins to the Iraqi Deputy Chief of Mission at the Iraqi embassy in Ankara on Friday.
In July, the Iraqi embassy in Berlin received 125 artifacts from the Institute for Near Eastern Archaeology at Freie Universität (The Free University) in Berlin, which were borrowed for the purpose of study since the 1990s, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Iraqi Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, Hassan Nazim, stated last June that Iraq recovered more than 17 thousand artifacts from the United States, and 300 artifacts from Lebanon.
Nazim also indicated that the Iraqi government is recovering scattered artifacts from different places all the time.