KIEV, June 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Dutch authorities have recognized the exhibits loaned by Crimean museums for an exhibition of Scythian gold in Amsterdam as the properties belonging to Ukraine, the Culture Ministry claimed Thursday.
“The Dutch Foreign Ministry has confirmed the recognition of all exhibits put up for the display to be Ukrainian properties,” it claimed in a press release.
It also said that, according to a decision taken by the Dutch ministry, the deposition and management of the museum items should be exercised by the National Museum of Ukrainian History in Kiev once the exhibits return to Ukraine.
“Talks with the Allard Pierson Museum at Amsterdam University regarding the legal terms of a return of the exhibition to Kiev continue,” the press service said.
The ministry recalled that it coordinated in 2013 the handover of more than 2,000 exhibits from the collections of the Central Museum of the Tauride, the Kerch History and Culture Preserve, the Tauric Chersonesos national preserve, the Bakhchisarai History and Culture Preserve, and the National History Museum in Kiev for an exhibition titled ‘Crimea: A Golden Island in the Black Sea’ in the local lore museum in Bonn, Germany, and the Allard Pierson Museum of Archaeology at Amsterdam University.
The loans reached the target museums at a time when Crimea was still formally a region of Ukraine. In March 2014, however, the population of the peninsula gave landslide support to the region’s reunification with Russia in a referendum, and the reunification was accomplished legislatively soon after that.
The U.S. and the EU have refused to honor the results of the referendum and the will of the Crimean people so far.
The exhibition is devoted to Crimea’s archeology, beginning with colonization of the peninsula by ancient Greeks in the 6th century B.C. The exhibits include, among other things, the finds made at the sites of ancient cities and villages, in the burial mounds of late Scythian period, and Gothic burial mounds.