Amsterdam: The Dutch government of Netherlands has decided to return hundreds of precious artifacts looted from Indonesia and Sri Lanka during its colonial past.
Objects to be returned include a gem-encrusted bronze cannon and a looted cache of jewels from the "Lombok treasure", according to BBC.
The agreed restitution comes as the Netherlands increasingly confronts its colonial past.
Culture Minister Uslu said the government was acting on recommendations laid out in a 2020 report by a Dutch committee investigating art taken during the colonial era.
"This is the first time that we are returning objects that should never have been in the Netherlands," Gunay Uslu said.
"But we are not just returning objects. We are actually starting a period in which we are more intensively cooperating with Indonesia and Sri Lanka."
Among the collections to be handed back to Indonesia is "Lombok treasure" - a trove of jewels, precious stones, gold and silver which was looted by the Dutch colonial army from a royal palace on Indonesia's Lombok island in 1894.
Sri Lanka will take back a lavishly decorated 18th Century bronze cannon, currently on display at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, thought to have been a gift from a Sri Lankan aristocrat to the King of Kandy in the 1740s.
The cannon is believed to have fallen into Dutch hands in 1765, when Dutch troops attacked and conquered the Sri Lankan kingdom of Kandy.
Other countries have also begun returning precious looted artifacts in recent years. Notable examples include British and German museums signing over some of the so-called Benin Bronzes stolen from Nigeria during a large-scale 1897 British military expedition.
India too wants its looted treasures, including Kohinoor diamond, back from the United Kingdom. However, how and and when it happens has to be seen.
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