ΑΤΗΕΝS – It’s been a long time coming – 200 years – but the United Kingdom has agreed to enter into talks about the return of the stolen Parthenon Marbles kept in the British Museum, a turnabout for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, said Kathimerini.

That was confirmed by the United Nations’ cultural organization UNESCO about one of the world’s greatest treasures that the British Museum said belong to them and would never go back to Greece, and Johnson earlier refusing to intervene.

According to an announcement, UNESCO said that the two sides had agreed to a meeting at the ministerial level to discuss Greece’s demand for the return of the marble sculptures taken off the Parthenon by a Scottish diplomat, Lord Elgin.

He said he had permission from the then-occupying Ottoman Empire that didn’t own them but the British insist that they weren’t stolen and don’t belong to Greece anymore.

According to UNESCO, Britain’s Arts Minister Stephen Parkinson, sent a request for a meeting with Greek Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni on April 29. The meeting will be arranged “in due course,” the UN agency said, after Greece agreed to the request.