Parthenon Marbles talks stall as Athens rejects loan proposal

ATHENS — The latest round of talks on the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens have stalled, as Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has rejected the British Museum’s proposed arrangement. Greece “cannot accept any arrangement that would require it to recognize the British Museum’s ownership of the [Parthenon] sculptures, or a scheme that would mean we ‘borrow’ parts of our own monument,” Mitsotakis wrote Thursday in an opinion piece published in the Guardian. The sculptures are part of a 2,500-year-old frieze that was removed from the Acropolis in Athens in the early 19th century by British diplomat and art aficionado Lord Elgin, who eventually sold them to the British government.