The British government announced on Saturday that it has put on hold a planned transfer of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after criticism from US President Donald Trump.
The Indian Ocean archipelago hosts a strategically important military base on Diego Garcia used by both the UK and the United States. London had agreed last year to hand sovereignty to its former colony while preserving UK control of the base under a 99-year lease with options to extend. The arrangement also required formal US approval to ensure continued US access.
The plan was frozen after Trump, who initially seemed to accept the agreement, later denounced it as “an act of great stupidity.” A UK government statement said it still considers the deal “the best way to protect the long-term future of the base,” but that it would only proceed if it had US support. “We are continuing to engage with the U.S. and Mauritius,” the statement added.
Simon McDonald, formerly the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, told BBC radio that the government needed to rethink the arrangement in light of the US president’s opposition, and that the agreement would go into a “deep freeze for the time being.”
Mauritius, roughly 2,000 kilometres southwest of the islands, said it would continue to pursue sovereignty through diplomatic and legal channels. Mauritian Foreign Minister Dhananjay Ramful said his government would “spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonization process in this part of the Indian Ocean.”
Indigenous Chagossians, roughly 2,000 people who were displaced in the 1960s and 70s to make way for the base, had expressed caution about the proposed transfer because of fears of mistreatment under Mauritian administration. Toby Noskwith, a spokesperson for the Indigenous Chagossian People campaign group, welcomed the reversal and said the previous 18 months had been “predicated on delegitimising and tormenting an entire population,” arguing that Chagossian voices, particularly elders and survivors, had been largely ignored.
The dispute over the Chagos deal has further strained the so-called “special relationship” between the UK and the US. Observers point to wider tensions between Trump and Western allies on a range of issues, including comments that “China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness,” a line the president used in criticizing the agreement in January. London has been cautious about permitting joint bases to be used for offensive actions, particularly concerning Iran, though it permitted use of Diego Garcia for what it described as defensive operations during recent regional tensions.