This is the best summary I could come up with:

Greece has won an unlikely ally in its campaign to retrieve the Parthenon marbles from the British Museum after Turkey publicly rejected the claim that Lord Elgin had received permission from Ottoman authorities to remove antiquities from the Acropolis.

Boz, who also spoke to Greece’s state broadcaster, ERT, said the only evidence that had been found was an edict written in Italian but that it neither contained the sultan’s signature nor seal, which would have confirmed it had come from the Imperial court.

Crews working at the behest of Elgin began removing statuary from the monumental frieze that once adorned the Parthenon with marble saws and other machinery in 1801 – an endeavour that would take more than a decade.

Boz conceded she had felt obliged to intervene when the UK’s representative in a recent meeting of Unesco’s Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property in Paris reiterated that the sculptures were bought legally during the Ottoman era.

“The British Museum has always maintained that the treasures were purchased legally; it’s been its central argument,” said Irene Stamatoudi, a professor of cultural heritage law who advises the Greek government on the issue.

Describing the artworks’ restoration to the place where they were carved 5,000 years ago as a “national goal”, the Greek culture minister, Lina Mendoni, said Turkey’s intervention had essentially bolstered Athens’ case.

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