The office said it had thus fulfilled the terms of the October 5, 2017 agreement signed by the German and Lithuanian foreign ministers.

In 2018, Germany handed the Act of February 16 over to Lithuania for display for up to five years. The document was exhibited at the House of the Signatories in Vilnius and at the Historical Presidential Palace in Kaunas.

Deputy Foreign Minister Egidijus Meilunas last week thanked Germany for the opportunity to display the act and asked for the possibility of extending the document's stay in Lithuania, Paulina Levickyte, an adviser to the foreign minister, has told BNS.

Professor Liudas Mazylis of Vytautas Magnus University found the original copy of the document, sent to Germany back in 1918, in the German Foreign Ministry's archive in March 2017.

This is the only known original copy of the Act of Independence which was signed by the Council of Lithuania in Vilnius on February 16, 1918.

Historians believe that several original copies of the document were signed on that day, but the whereabouts of the others are unknown.

Signed by hand by the signatories, the original copy is the authentic birth certificate of the state of Lithuania.

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