Athens installs Alexander the Great statue after 27-year delay

Athens on Friday installed its first Alexander the Great statue, a project mired in bureaucratic delays for nearly three decades.

The 3,50-metre (11.5-foot) equestrian statue of a young Alexander, cast in bronze, was erected in central Athens opposite a statue of Lord Byron.

According to the city of Athens, it was completed in 1972 and acquired by the state in 1992, at a time of intense nationalist feeling over a bitter name dispute with the newly-independent former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis insisted Friday the move had "nothing" to do with the Macedonia dispute.

"The decision to erect the statue was taken in 2015.

This is a mark of the delays of Greek bureaucracy," Kaminis told AFP.

The fourth-century BC warrior king, born in today's northern Greek region of Macedonia, is a hero figure to Greeks.

For decades, Athens accused