LONDON — The British government said Wednesday it still plans to hand over a contested Indian Ocean archipelago, which is home to a strategically important military base, to Mauritius, after that country’s new leader backed away from the contentious deal.
The U.K. and Mauritius announced an agreement in October to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, a chain of more than 60 islands just south of the equator off the tip of India. Under the deal, the U.K.-U.S. naval and bomber base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, would remain under U.K. control for at least 99 years.
When it made the announcement, Britain’s Labour Party government said it was finalizing details of a treaty with the Mauritian government. Since then, voters in Mauritius ousted the government that made the deal, replacing it with one led by Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam.
Ramgoolam said he was reopening negotiations because the draft deal “would not produce the benefits that the nation could expect from such an agreement.” He told lawmakers in Mauritius’ parliament on Tuesday that his government “is still willing to conclude an agreement with the United Kingdom" and had submitted counterproposals.
Britain's foreign office minister, Stephen Doughty, said he was confident the deal would be finalized, and it was “completely understandable that the new Mauritian government will want time to study the details.”
“I am confident that we have agreed a good and fair deal that is in both sides’ interests,” he told lawmakers in the House of Commons. “It protects the base at proportionate cost. It has been supported across the national security architecture in the United States and by India.”
The U.K.’s opposition Conservatives have accused the government of surrendering sovereignty over a British territory.
The deal was hailed by U.S. President Joe Biden as a “historic agreement” that secured the future of the Diego Garcia base. But supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump have slammed it.
British lawmaker Nigel Farage, a Trump ally, said “there is very deep disquiet” among incoming Trump administration officials “as to what this may mean for the long-term future of Diego Garcia.”
One of the last remnants of the British Empire, the Chagos Islands have been under British control since 1814. Britain evicted as many as 2,000 people from the islands in the 1960s and 1970s so the U.S. military could build the Diego Garcia base, which has supported U.S. military operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the U.S. acknowledged it also had been used for clandestine rendition flights of terror suspects.
The U.S. has described the base, which is home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel, as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.
The displaced Chagossians fought unsuccessfully in U.K. courts for years for the right to go home. Under the deal, they and their descendants could be allowed to return to the islands, apart from Diego Garcia.
Mauritius, which lies east of Madagascar in southern Africa, is around 2,100 kilometers (1,250 miles) southwest of the Chagos Islands.
