Peru apparently plans to sue Yale University in a long-running dispute over thousands of Incan artifacts excavated by an American scholar at Machu Picchu nearly 100 years ago, the Associated Press reported, citing an article in El Peruano, Peru’s official newspaper.

The article in El Peruano said the Justice Ministry would assign a prosecutor to press the government’s case against Yale, but did not say when or where the suit would be filed.

The university and the South American nation reached an understanding in September 2007 under which Yale acknowledged Peru’s title to the artifacts and agreed to return most of them over a period years. The details of that agreement, however, have been debated ever since.

The Yale Daily News reported last month that the resignation in early October of Peru’s entire cabinet could put those negotiations in jeopardy. It noted, however, that the foreign minister, who had recently joined the talks, had been invited to remain in his position. —Charles Huckabee