Clooney says confident Parthenon Marbles will return to Greece

ATHENS: Oscar-winning actor George Clooney says he is certain the Parthenon Marbles will return to Greece, adding in an interview that their repatriation is a "family" matter for him and his wife.

"They're going to come back. I know they are," Clooney told to the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea in an interview published Saturday.

Athens has for decades demanded the return of the sculptures from the British Museum, saying they were looted in 1802 by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

Clooney's wife Amal Alamuddin Clooney, a human rights lawyer, has since 2011 advised several Greek governments to take the case to international courts.

"That's all my wife and I both have worked" towards, Clooney said. "We'll keep pushing until it happens. There's no question about it."

The current government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has escalated its efforts for the repatriation of the Marbles, making official and unofficial meetings with the new UK government of Keith Starmer last autumn.