NEW YORK – Using the United Nations General Assembly annual opening for a state, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece will eventually get back the stolen Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum.

“I’m pleased to say that our long and continuing effort to reunite the Parthenon sculptures back in Greece, in this effort we have received support from the vast majority of member states, as well as from UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee,” he said.

“No matter how long it will take, the Parthenon sculptures will eventually be coming home,” said Mitsotakis, reported Reuters, but he didn’t mention his New Democracy government isn’t willing to go to court to force it.

The museum has kept the stolen pieces for 200 years after acquiring them from a Scottish diplomat, Lord Elgin, who said he had the permission of the then-ruling Ottoman Empire to take them, although they belonged to Greece, not Turkey

The museum has offered to loan them to Greece on condition that the Greek government provide collateral in return in the form of Greek artifacts and admit in writing the marbles belong to the United Kingdom.