Iraq, US reach deal on stolen artefacts: official

A senior Iraqi official said on Friday that Baghdad has reached an initial deal with the US on the return of more than 10,000 artefacts stolen from Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion:

"We have reached an initial agreement... on returning more than 10,000 Iraqi artefacts that are in the United States," by August 2014, senior ministry advisor Baha al-Mayahi told AFP. But there are still details that need to be worked out, and the artefacts must all be registered in an electronic archive at Cornell University in the state of New York before they are returned, Mayahi said. The two sides agreed not to go into details about how the artefacts came to be in the United States, he added. He said the US was cooperating with Iraq on returning stolen artefacts, and that over 1,500 had been brought back to Iraq from the United States so far.

"Iraq, US reach deal on stolen artefacts: official", AFP July 26, 2013

UPDATE 15th August 2013: There was a lot of confusion about these "artefacts", it now seems likely that it was this Jewish archive that was being discussed. Michael E. Ruane, "Archives readies a schoolgirl’s records and a trove of Jewish treasures for return to Iraq", The Washington Post August 13th 2013. This of course has been a long-running dispute.