CAIRO: Egypt said Wednesday its antiquities department severed ties with France’s Louvre museum because it has refused to return what are described as stolen artifacts, one of the country’s most aggressive attempts yet to reclaim relics from some of the world’s leading Egyptology collections.

The ruling means that no archaeological expeditions connected to the France’s premier museum will be allowed to work in Egypt. Already Egypt has suspended an excavation sponsored by the Louvre at the massive necropolis of Saqqara and canceled a lecture in Egypt by a former curator of the museum.

“The Louvre museum refused to return four archaeological reliefs to Egypt that were stolen during the 1980s from the tomb of the noble Tetaki,” near the famed temple city of Luxor, said a statement quoting Supreme Council of Antiquities head Zahi Hawass.

A spokeswoman for the antiquities council said there would be a meeting Friday with the Louvre to resolve the matter. “We do have great collaboration with them,” she said. “What I hear is they are willing to return the items.”

The Louvre would not return repeated calls for comment and France’s Culture Ministry said it had no comment.

Ihab Badawy, press attaché of the Egyptian Embassy in Paris, was optimistic the conflict with the Louvre would be resolved. “We are witnessing an evolution in the Louvre’s position,” he said. “It’s much more positive. We believe that it will be on its way to be solved very soon.”

Hawass’ office described the four fragments as paintings of the nobleman’s journey to the afterlife chipped from the walls of the tomb by thieves in the 1980s.

Christiane Ziegler, the former director of the Louvre’s Egyptology department, acquired the four fragments last year and displayed them, said the SCA. She will now not be allowed to give a scheduled lecture in Egypt. Upon taking the helm of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities in 2002, Hawass made recovering stolen Egyptian antiquities a priority. He issued a regulation, that he says was agreed to by all major international museums including the Louvre, banning the acquiring or display of stolen antiquities.

Hawass has made several high profile requests from the world’s museum for the return of Egyptian artifacts.

At the top of his list are the bust of Nefertiti — wife of the famed Pharaoh Akhenaton — and the Rosetta Stone, a basalt slab with an inscription that was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. The bust is in Berlin’s Egyptian Museum; the Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London.

Hawass said Egypt also was seeking “unique artifacts” from at least 10 museums around the world, including the Louvre in Paris and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

In one of the more high profile and acrimonious fights, Hawass has repeatedly requested the return of a 3,200-year-old golden mask of a noblewoman from the St. Louis Art Museum.

Hawass also has written to request the bust of Anchhaf — the builder of the Chephren Pyramid — from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the statue of Hemiunu — nephew of the Pharaoh Khufu, builder of the largest pyramid — from Germany’s Roemer-Pelizaeu museum.