Cairo — The prime minister of the Netherlands announced Sunday that the European nation will soon return a 3,500-year-old sculpture to Egypt, a day after he attended the lavish opening ceremony of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof said in a statement that, during a meeting on Sunday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, he informed his counterpart that the Netherlands would return a bust of a high-ranking official from the dynasty of Pharaoh Thutmose III.

The piece was discovered up for sale at an art fair in 2022 and was confiscated after Dutch authorities received an anonymous tip about its illegal origin, according to a statement from the Dutch government.

The statement said the art show "trader voluntarily renounced the sculpture" and that D

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