Museum Chairman George Osborne said Greece and the UK can reach a deal over the contested Parthenon sculptures if both sides are willing to compromise.

“I’m still optimistic that we can reach an agreement,” Osborne said in an interview in Athens. “If everyone enters into it with the spirit of we’re not going to get everything we want, as is always the case with a successful agreement, then there’s a deal to be done.”Osborne is trying to help resolve a source of friction between the Greek and British governments that dates back almost two centuries.

The 5th century BC Parthenon sculptures — also known as the Elgin Marbles — were removed from the Acropolis in Athens in the early 19th century by agents of the 7th Earl of Elgin who had been British ambassador to Constantinople — then the capital of the Ottoman Empire — when Greece was controlled by the Ottomans. Elgin sold the sculptures to the British government that then gave trusteeship to the British Museum in London.

Since gaining independence from the Ottomans in 1832, Greece has repeatedly asked for the return of the collection of sculptures and friezes created by ancient Greek sculptor Phidias. The dispute has been turbocharged in recent years, in part because the country built a dedicated museum in anticipation of their return.

Osborne, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been trying to help broker a deal since taking up his position at the British Museum in 2021, and appeared to be closing in on an agreement in early 2023 that would have seen the marbles returned over time to Greece as part of a cultural exchange. But more than three years later, a deal has yet to be forged.

“I very much hope we can come to some arrangement whereby the Parthenon sculptures that are in London can be seen in Athens but they have to be shared,” Osborne said Tuesday. “I know that’s not the position of everyone in Greece, and I understand that and respect that, but that is our position, and so if we want to make progress, it has to be in that spirit.”

That’s at odds with the position of the Greek government. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote in an op ed published by the Guardian in September that “Greece cannot accept any arrangement that would require it to recognize the British Museum’s ownership of the sculptures, or a scheme that would mean we ‘borrow’ parts of our own monument.”Before coming to power, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said in 2023 that the sculptures should be returned to Greece “no strings attached.”In August, he told the Financial Times that it’s an issue for the British Museum.

As the UK government under Burnham is considering possible ways to strengthen its relationship with the EU, Greece’s premier suggested the issue of the marbles would be linked to any talks over future ties between the two sides.

“The Parthenon sculptures will be part of this debate. This is not just an issue for Greece, it’s an issue for Europe,” Mitsotakis said Oct. 6.

EU leaders will meet Burnham at an EU-UK summit in Brussels next month.

“I respect the intensity of the feeling in Greece,’ said Osborne, who was in Athens as the keynote speaker at a fifth year anniversary event of Ideal Holdings SA.“If we’re going to come to an agreement, then we’re going to have to come to some arrangement where these amazing objects are seen both in London and in Athens, and are seen in two different contexts - one the story of ancient Greece and ancient Athens and in the British Museum the history of all civilizations next to each other.”