Tehran, February 08: Iran is cutting ties with the British Museum in protest at repeated delays in the loan to Tehran of an ancient Persian treasure, the Cyrus Cylinder, local media reported on Sunday.
“Since the Cyrus Cylinder has not been transferred to Iran, we will lodge a complaint against the British Museum to UNESCO and cut ties,” Hamid Baghai, who heads Iran’s cultural heritage and tourism organisation, said in the reports.
Baghai said the museum had failed to meet a final deadline of Sunday, leading to the cut and Iran’s decision to notify the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
Many historians regard the cylinder, discovered in 1879, as the world’s first declaration of human rights.
It was written at the order of Persian ruler Cyrus the Great after his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC and is currently with the British Museum in London.
“The British Museum told us they will transfer it to us in September, then they said November, and then finally said January 16. We have so far spent around 200,000 dollars on additional security devices to protect the loaned cylinder,” Baghai added.
“Then we got a letter saying they cannot send the cylinder following the Ashura day incidents,” he said, referring to deadly clashes in Tehran between security forces and opposition supporters on the day of a Shiite ritual on December 27.
Baghai said the museum later told Tehran it had more “fragments belonging to the cylinder and the cylinder will be transferred to Iran … So we gave them a final two weeks to keep their word,” a period which ended on Sunday.
—Agecies