By Filing complaints to Interpol, Iraq intends to recover antiquities

INA-  Baghdad


The ministry of culture, tourism and antiquities counted on Sunday that it has recovered 17338 piece of antiquities in 18 month within its one year and a half plan, explaining that this is the largest number of antiquities recovered. The ministry stated that it filed a complaint to the Interpol in order to push some countries in the process of recovering antiquities.  

The ministry’s spokesman Ahmed al-alyawi said that Iraq has 15,000 registered archaeological sites and the unregistered sites reach double this number," pointing out that "some people of remote areas and in cooperation with thieves are excavating these areas and extracting what can be extracted and they smuggle and sell it.

The statement added that "there is a set of recoveries from foreign countries registered with the ministry, as some of these pieces were museum pieces stolen years ago and some of them were extracted by random excavation, which is the biggest problem facing the ministry.

The statement added that the ministry is cooperating with the ministry of foreign affairs and Iraqi embassies to recover the pieces excavated randomly in a legal way.

He added that "the protection file for these sites should be handled by the Ministries of Defense and Interior, in cooperation with citizens to prevent cases of smuggling."

 "There are strict laws that carry the death penalty against smugglers of antiquities," he said.