The General Directorate for Cultural Heritage and Museums is one of the main units ofTurkish Culture and Tourism Ministry. The General Directorate is composed of nine departments. "Combating Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property" is the responsible department for preventing illicit trafficking of cultural properties, which incorporates archeologists, art historians and historians. The responsibilities of this department are:
- to evaluate information about illicit excavations and traffic coming through all around the country and coordinating the relevant institutions,
- monitoring the main auction houses and museums web sites from all around the world, reviewing the court decisions and taking action if it is necessary,
- maintaining negotiations about return and restitution issues with the holders of collections which include illicitly exported or stolen cultural objects,
- making announcements for stolen artifacts of state museums and also private collections,
- following recent return cases of other source countries,
- planning return and restitution cases of Turkey,
- planning local and national training programs, arranging platforms for cooperating with other countries in order to prevent illicit trafficking.
