Yerevan/Mediamax/. Former Turkish minister Faruk Ozak is trying to return to Turkey some valuable artifacts weighing 30 tons and 500 manuscripts, which were moved to Russia during the World War I.

Milliet newspaper reports that the former Minister of Public Works and Housing, ex-president of Trabzonspor FC Faruk Ozak “has been fighting for nine years to return the artifacts to Turkey”.

“Between 2013 and 2015, Ozak kept Prime Minister Recep Erdogan informed about the stolen artifacts, and after the negotiations of the two leaders during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Turkey, the parties reached an agreement on the return of the artifacts to Trabzon. The process was interrupted by the crisis in relations with Russia, which was caused by the downing of the Russian plane,” writes Milliet.

“Our artifacts are most likely to be in the Saint Petersburg Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. Among other valuable pieces, they also contain plenty of artifacts of the Urartu era and more than 200 manuscripts of the Ottoman period. We want Putin to return what they have been keeping all this time,” said Faruk Ozak.

Urartu was an ancient Armenian kingdom in the Southwest Asia, located in the Armenian Highlands. Urartu held a dominant position in Western Asia in the first quarter of the first millennium BC.