US renews ban on imports of Cypriot heritage, Cyprus coins

By Apostolis Zoupaniotis — Washington (CNA)

 

Cyprus Ambassador to Washington Andreas Kakouris and US Undersecretary at the State Department Nicholas Burns have signed the renewal for a further five years of the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding to restrict the import of pre-classical and classical archaeological artefacts and Byzantine period ecclesiastical and ceremonial ethnological objects.

For the first time, the Memorandum includes provisions for coins, despite the initial objections raised by the US administration, which were curbed after the State Department was barraged by letters from personalities of the archaeological and arts world, as well as hundreds of overseas Cypriots and Greeks.

Speaking at the ceremony, Burns said Cyprus has a huge cultural heritage, which must be protected, adding that the US has undertaken to safeguard this heritage. He said many artefacts have been illegally imported to the US and other countries.
Burns thanked Cyprus for its invaluable assistance during the crisis in Lebanon and referred to the values shared by the US and Cyprus.

Referring to the Cyprus problem, Burns reiterated the US commitment to a peaceful settlement.

Kakouris thanked the US for renewing the Memorandum for a further five years, noting that the coins included in the renewed document cover the period from the end of the 6th century BC to 235 AD.

He concluded his speech with an excerpt from a speech given by former Cyprus Ambassador and present Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Markoulli when she signed the Memorandum on July 26, 2002, in which she had said that everyone could be proud for contributing to the protection of a unique cultural heritage, which lasted ten thousand years, and “we have a responsibility to see it survive in the centuries to come, to the benefit of the human race as a whole.”