Greek Culture Minister George Voulgarakis on Tuesday announced that the first exhibition halls at the new Acropolis museum will be officially opened in spring of 2007.

The long-delayed museum, which costs 129 million euros (157 million U.S. dollars), will be completed in March 2007, he told reporters after a tour in the construction site.

"It is our ambition to have the building finished in a year from now," he said.

Greece had said that the new museum will be finished before the 2004 Olympic Games in order to host the Parthenon masterpieces, known as Elgin marbles, which are on display in London's British Museum, if Greece could successfully ask for their return or temporary borrowing.

Voulgarakis reiterated that Greece has at no time backed off from its demand that the British Museum in London return the Parthenon Marbles.

"We're intensifying our efforts with a friendlier approach, as the international community now appears more receptive to such a request," he said.

"We do not want all the antiquities that have been taken from Greece, we are just interested in the specific artifacts," he added.

Source: Xinhua