Sharjah24 – AFP: Iraqi Ministers of Culture Hassan Nazim and Foreign Affairs Fuad Hussein hold a press conference as the ministry says the US would return some 17,000 archaeological treasures dating back 4,000 years and looted in recent decades, in an "unprecedented" restitution of pieces, most of which document "the commercial exchanges during the Sumerian period", including a 3,500-year-old clay tablet with a sequence from the epic of Gilgamesh.
Hassan Nazim, Iraq's Minister of Culture said, "The return of 17,000 artifacts have cultural significance about Iraqi identity, history and the Iraqi present, and that it is not a physical object that will be placed in the museum."
He added, "There are still thousands of Iraqi artifacts smuggled out of Iraq. The laws support us in Iraq and the laws of the international community and the United Nations, as well as the laws of the countries to which the antiquities fled."
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