A total of 1,120 stolen artifacts were returned to Turkey in 2022, a senior police officer said.
In an interview with the DHA news agency, Burcu Özdemir, head of the police department for combating the illegal circulation of artifacts abroad, stressed that the total number of artifacts returned to the country over the past two decades has reached about 9 thousand.
Özdemir said that her team is working with scientists and museum experts.
“We are preparing a list of smuggled items and artifacts based on expert suggestions, and then we send these lists to the indicated countries through the Turkish Foreign Ministry,” she said.
Turkey has signed bilateral agreements with about 12 countries to exchange smuggled artifacts with each other.
“The latest agreements were signed with Serbia, Ecuador and Switzerland in 2022,” she added.