TEHRAN – Iran’s tourism chief Masoud Soltanifar asked Iranians abroad to report smuggled artifacts and antiquities to Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicraft Organization (CHTHO).

In an announcement, he asked Iranians who live in different countries to give information about stolen Iranian artifacts existed in other countries to the organization via its website www.ichto.ir.

A collection of ancient Persian seals, which had been smuggled to the U.S. in 2002 have been returned to Iran recently.

Last year, Italy returned to Iran some 30 stolen artifacts that had been smuggled to the European country during the past 10 years.

Iran’s ancient fossils, which had been sent to the U.S. some 40 years ago for studies were returned home after Tehran won a decades-long legal dispute with Washington, were unveiled in the Iranian capital.

Before that, in December 2014, a collection of over 300 artifacts of around 3000 years old which had been kept in Belgium for 50 years, was finally returned to Iran following a verdict by the court of appeals in Belgium.

And the last but not the least, the U.S. returned a 2700-year-old Persian griffin, a so-called mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, during President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to New York in October 2103 to attend the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

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