PHNOM PENH, Sep 26 (Xinhua): Cambodia had reclaimed 258 looted antiquities from five countries in the last five years from 2017 to 2021, Long Ponnasirivath, secretary of state and spokesman of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has announced.
The reclaimed ancient artifacts included 33 from the United States, 71 from Japan, 110 from Hungary, 16 from Britain, and 28 from Thailand, he said.
"Three main mechanisms have been used to reclaim those antiquities," he said during a press conference, adding that they included appeals to collectors to return them voluntarily, negotiations, and legal struggle.
The reclamation of those ancient objects had been made based on concrete evidence, he said.
According to Ponnasirivath, from 1996 to date, Cambodia has taken back more than 600 looted artifacts from abroad.
Numerous Cambodian ancient objects had been stolen from various temples and illegally exported to other countries in the 1970s during the Cambodian civil war. - Xinhua
