Iran returns war booty to Kuwait

Iran has returned nearly 400 looted artefacts which had been stolen from Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation in 1990. The works, which include an important Koran, swords and ceramics, belong to the ruling al-Sabah family and had been on show in a Kuwaiti museum. They were seized in 1999 in western Iran, near the Turkish border. In a separate incident, antiquities from the southern Iranian site of Jiroft were confiscated in July from a Kuwaiti passenger at London’s Heathrow airport. The important site, dating back 5,000 years, was discovered in 2001 and initially suffered extensive looting (The Art Newspaper, No.143, January 2004, p.9). Inquiries are continuing, but the Jiroft antiquities are expected to be returned to Tehran.