London, The UK has confirmed that an agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius while retaining the joint UK-US Diego Garcia military base has been paused due to President Donald Trump’s changed position in recent weeks.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office minister Stephen Doughty made a statement in the House of Commons on Monday to update Parliament on the remote British Indian Ocean Territory .
The disputed archipelago, made up of around 60 islands, includes a tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, which the West views as crucial for the region’s stability and international security.
“Throughout this process, we have always been clear that we could not let the treaty enter into force without US support,” Doughty told MPs.
He claimed American support had been consistent, with Trump describing it as “very strong” and “powerful”.
His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, welcomed the pact as a “historic agreement” that “secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint US-UK military facility at Diego Garcia”.
“However, the position of the US President appears to have changed in recent weeks. This means that, in practical terms, it has become impossible to agree at political level an update to the 1966 UK-US agreement concerning the availability of defence purposes of the British Indian Ocean Territory, known as the exchange of notes, which is necessary to ratify the treaty,” the British minister stated.
“The government nevertheless remain confident that the Diego Garcia treaty is the best means of protecting the full operation of the military base for us and our allies for future generations. We will continue to work with the United States on the agreement and the way forward, and we will continue to engage closely with Mauritius,” he said.
Under the terms of the deal agreed last year, Britain was to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius but lease back the Diego Garcia base for 99 years, at an estimated cost of 3.4 billion pounds.
In January, Trump called on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to scrap the agreement, labelling it an “act of total weakness”.
The Conservative Party’s shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, called on the government to confirm no revival of a deal related to the Diego Garcia base that is opposed by the Americans.
“The Opposition [Conservatives] operate in a state of convenient amnesia, but they know the reality, they knew the jeopardy facing the base and they know that they presided over 11 rounds of negotiations,” Doughty countered.
“As the House knows, the operation of the base has been under threat for decades… The status quo is untenable, and ignoring the situation would have been reckless and irresponsible,” he said.
The Chagos Islands had been a dependency of Mauritius when it was a French colony, but both were handed to the UK in 1845. Mauritius gained independence from the UK in 1968 and has since claimed the Chagos archipelago as Mauritian.
The UK and Mauritius signed an agreement in May last year, and the Bill to implement the pact entitled Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory has now lapsed as it failed to be cleared by both Houses of Parliament within the current session’s timeline.
The issue is now expected to be restarted afresh following the UK-US talks on Diego Garcia. PTI AK ZH
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