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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani touched on a very sensitive international debate ahead of meeting King Charles III on Wednesday by bringing up the controversial ownership of a British crown jewel.
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Mamdani was at an unrelated news conference Wednesday morning when he was asked how he envisioned his meeting with Charles at the 9/11 memorial alongside other local and state leaders. He responded that the visit itself should focus on the victims of the tragic terrorist attack nearly 25 years ago.
“If I was to speak to the king separately from that, I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond,” Mamdani added.
NYC Mayor Mamdani on what he would say to King Charles
The diamond, also spelled Kohinoor, is believed to be have been mined in South India in the 13th century. It was originally 186 carats, earning it the name that means “Mountain of Light.”
Many consider the diamond to have been stolen by the British Empire through a controversial agreement with a 10-year-old king when the imperialist nation colonized India. There have been calls online to return it, though even India’s claim to the diamond has been debated because of its long history of changing hands.
Mamdani did not specify in his comments where the diamond should be returned to, as multiple countries, including India, have expressed a claim to the gemstone. Mamdani is notably of Indian descent, as his father is Gujarati and his mother is Punjabi.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on Mamdani’s remarks Wednesday.
The Koh-i-Noor diamond sits today in England among the monarchy’s crown jewels. Its actual origin is not exactly known. It is believed to have most likely been found in the Golconda mines of the Deccan between 1100 and 1300, though some believe it may have been mentioned in ancient Sanskrit writings from thousands of years ago.
Its first confirmed mention in recorded history came from the writings of a man who invaded India in the 1500s to establish the Moghul empire, which ruled over Central Asia for hundreds of years. According to the International Antique Jewelers Association, the Koh-i-Noor was featured in the peacock throne commissioned by Moghul leader Shah Jahan in 1628.
Just more than 100 years later, Persian ruler Nader Shah took the throne as a prize when he invaded Delhi. Nader took the diamond and placed it in an armband along with the famed Timur Ruby, according to the Smithsonian Institution.
The Koh-i-Noor then spent 70 years in Afghanistan, where it was passed around by leaders who won bloody battles against one another. It returned to India through Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh in 1813 until his death in 1839.
The jewel stayed with his son and successor, Duleep Singh, until the British Empire overtook Punjab a decade later. Duleep was only 10 years old at the time, and he became the last Sikh maharaja of the Punjab.
Agents of Britain, through the British East India Company, exploited the instability in Punjab and sought to overthrow the child from the throne, according to Historic Royal Palaces, an independent charity that manages the U.K.’s unoccupied royal palaces.
Duleep was forced to sign the Treaty of Lahore, which explicitly stated he would surrender the Koh-i-Noor to Queen Victoria. The boy was exiled from India, given to a British soldier who served as his guardian and forced to convert to Christianity.
“The Koh-i-Noor was displayed in the Great Exhibition of 1851 as a symbol of British imperial power,” the Historic Royal Palaces website says. “It was then recut to conform to contemporary European tastes, which preferred the sparkle of a many-faceted stone.”
Today, the diamond is set in the front cross of the Queen Mother’s Crown.
Multiple countries with connections to the diamond have appealed to have the British surrender the jewel, including India, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But appeals to return it have grown with the rise of social media, most notably after Queen Elizabeth II died almost four years ago.
People feel outrage over the Koh-i-Noor’s being used “as a trophy of empire,” Danielle Kinsey, an associate professor of history with a focus on the history of 19th century Britain and empire at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, told NBC News at the time.
“To be purely pragmatic about it, at some point the monarchy will understand that keeping the diamond is more of a public relations liability for them than an asset,” Kinsey said. “I think the same is true for many, many looted artifacts in Britain today and the institutions that house them. Also, it’s the right thing to do if the royal family is serious about making apologies for the ills of British imperialism and how they profited from it.”
Jane Milosch, the director of the Smithsonian’s Provenance Research Initiative, described post-colonial collections as a “big topic” in an article in Smithsonian Magazine about the Koh-i-Noor. However, it is not always clear where an item should be returned as borders and countries have changed over centuries of war and imperial regimes.
“You’re dealing with countries that existed when the object was acquired, but they may not exist now — and countries who we had trade agreements with that may have different export laws now,” Milosch said. “Provenance is very complex and people aren’t used to processing a chain of ownership
Mamdani did speak to King Charles briefly Wednesday as the king went through a receiving line at the 9/11 memorial in downtown New York City. The interaction was seen on camera and it appeared brief, and it was unclear what they said.
Video of the interaction seemed positive as both men were smiling as they spoke and shook hands.
Charles then left for a series of events in Manhattan through the afternoon before he left New York City in the evening. He and his wife are in Virginia on Thursday for the last appearances of their four-day visit to the U.S.
CORRECTION: (May 3, 2026, 9:30 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the family origins of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mother. Her family is Punjabi Indian, not Gujarati.
Doha Madani is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News. Pronouns: she/her.
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