MOFA hands over the artifacts recovered from Washington to the Ministry of Culture

 Baghdad-INA

 
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs received today, Tuesday, the artifacts recovered from the United States.
 
Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein said during a joint press conference with the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities Hassan Nazim, that was attended by the Iraqi News Agency (INA): "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs worked to activate the recovery of looted antiquities, noting that the Iraqi embassy in Washington received the ownership of the smuggled antiquities.
 
 
 



Hussein pointed out that Iraq received from Washington a very valuable clay tablet, which is the Gilgamesh tablet, adding that the number of archaeological pieces that were received from the U.S side and other countries amounted to 17,338 archaeological pieces during this year.

He also mentioned that MOFA has delivered five batches of documents and antiquities to the Ministry of Culture since 2016.
 




On his part, the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, Hassan Nazim, said that utmost efforts have been made to retrieve antiquities from Washington, noting that the process of recovering artifacts from Washington is the largest in the history of Iraq.
 
Nazim stressed that smugglers are surrounded by international laws that force them to hand over the stolen and smuggled Iraqi antiquities.