“I have a feeling it’s going to work out very well,” Donald Trump had said to the Prime Minister of the UK, Keir Starmer, in February, during his visit to the White House.
This preceded skepticism that a change of the administration in Mauritius and Trump’s return to the White House would cause the plan to ‘cede sovereignty of the islands’ to fall apart.
However, as per the recent developments, the US president is reported to have authorized the deal between Mauritius and the United Kingdom to hand over control of the Chagos islands, where a UK-US military installation is situated.
The plan to cede control had been set in motion last year, in October.
“We are working with the Mauritian government to finalize and sign the treaty,” said Tom Wells, a spokesman for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“Once signed it will be laid before both houses of Parliament for scrutiny and for ratification,” the spokesman added.
The deal entails that the UK will pay to keep control of the joint US-UK military facility on Diego Garcia, the largest island, for 99 years while surrendering its control of the Chagos archipelago.
As reported by the Guardian, senior Republicans in the US criticized the deal last year, and more recently, some members of the UK government questioned why the country was spending billions on it when costs were so high.
Chagos archipelago: The UK vs Mauritius
The UK established the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965, isolating the islands from Mauritius before the latter obtained independence in 1968.
Subsequently, over 2,000 original inhabitants were forced off the islands between the 60s and 70s, for the U.S. military to construct the Diego Garcia facility,
For decades, the Chagossians have fought for their right to return, filing cases in British courts.
The UK had repeatedly denied their return, claiming security concerns over the US military facility on Diego Garcia.
In 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that Britain must restore the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, declaring that the separation was unconstitutional under international law. The United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of Mauritius’ claim.
However, more recently, the United Nations and its highest court have encouraged Britain to cede the Chagos to Mauritius, since the island nation has long disputed Britain’s claim to the archipelago.
