Turkey Wants Talks with France on Antiquities
Turkish Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said
Thursday that his country wishes to start a "dialogue" with French
authorities for the return of tiles and other antiquities on display at
the Louvre museum in Paris which Turkey claims were removed from the country illegally at the end of the 19th
century.
The contested pieces include tiles from a historic Ottoman mosque in Istanbul. The
tiles are part of a 12-metre- (40-foot-) long mosaic put together by
the Louvre and one of the highlights of a new wing of Islamic art which
was launched at the end of October. Turkey's Radikal newspaper
said they were "stolen" from the Piyale Pasha mosque designed by Ottoman
imperial architect Mimar Sinan for the vizier and grand admiral Piyale
Mehmed Pasha and built between 1565 and 1573. Louvre authorities
have said the pieces used in the mosaic were either donated and bought
between 1871 and 1940, "In conditions that were perfectly legal and in
line with the rules of the time". Turkey has also long been
seeking the return of tiles taken from the 16th-century tomb of Sultan
Selim II in Istanbul but former culture minister Frederic Mitterrand
rejected the demand.
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