France returns 23 artifacts to Syria after 15 years on loan

France has returned 23 Syrian artifacts that remained in the country after being loaned for an exhibition after 15 years.

Their return coincided with French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Damascus - the first visit by a major Western leader since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

The artifacts, delivered on Macron's presidential plane on Tuesday and returned to the National Museum of Syria, include Roman bronzes, Byzantine and Islamic pieces and a richly colored mosaic that once adorned the Great Mosque of Damascus, also known as the Umayyad Mosque.

The collection was loaned in 2011 for an exhibition of Syrian antiquities at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris.

Mamun Abdulkarim, a professor of archaeology at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and previously director general of the Syrian Antiquities Authority, said the loan was made as part of normal cultural cooperation before the conflict in the country.

Abdulkarim said he formally requested the return of the artifacts in 2014, but received no response.

He said French officials later told Syrian authorities that they could not communicate with representatives of Assad's government, which has become internationally isolated and subject to broad sanctions following the crackdown on anti-government protests and the ensuing civil war.

He said that the UNESCO office in Beirut later tried to mediate, but that attempt also failed.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the returned artifacts belonged to museums in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia and Palmyra and remained in France after diplomatic ties between the two countries were severed under Assad's rule.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said France was the first country to cooperate with Syria in a national campaign to return antiquities held abroad since Assad was overthrown by rebel forces, ending more than five decades of rule by the Assad family.

The ministry said France was the first country to cooperate with Syria as part of a national campaign to return its antiquities abroad.