Signing of the Switzerland–Türkiye agreement on cultural property

On 15 November, at the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, Alain Berset and Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism, sign the bilateral agreement on the import, illicit transit and return of archaeological cultural property, from prehistory to AD 1500.

“The theft, looting and illicit trafficking of cultural property […] strike the peoples concerned at the very heart of their identity,” he says at the signing. Switzerland had already concluded similar agreements with Italy, Greece, Colombia, China, Egypt, Cyprus, Peru and Mexico. He lays a wreath at Atatürk’s mausoleum.

Speeches on this site

• Signature de l’accord Suisse-Türkiye sur les biens culturels (in French, French-language page)

Sources

• Federal Office of Culture, press release
• Daily Sabah