Mauritian Prime Minister reopens talks with UK on Chagos Islands deal | news

Mauritius Prime Minister says he has issued ‘counter-proposals’ to the UK over the Chagos Islands deal.

A landmark agreement for the UK to hand over control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has been called into question after the African island nation’s new prime minister issued “counter-proposals”.

The British government still plans to hand over control of a chain of 60 islands to Mauritius on the condition that the joint UK-US strategic military base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, remains under British control for at least 99 years. Years.

Mauritius Prime Minister Naveen Ramgoolam, who took office last month, said on Tuesday that he would reopen negotiations because… Current deal “It will not produce the benefits that the nation could expect from such an agreement.”

Ramgoolam told lawmakers in the Mauritius Parliament that his government “remains prepared to conclude an agreement with the United Kingdom” and put forward counter-proposals.

Britain’s Overseas Territories Minister Stephen Doughty said on Wednesday he was confident the deal would be finalized and that it was “completely understandable” that the new Mauritian government would seek time to review the details.

“I am confident that we have agreed a good and fair agreement that is in the interests of both sides,” he told lawmakers in the House of Commons. “It protects the base at a proportionate cost. It has been supported across the national security architecture of the United States and India.

The opposition Conservative Party in the United Kingdom accused the government of ceding sovereignty over British territory.

US President Joe Biden praised the agreement and described it as “historic,” stressing its importance for the future of the US naval base in Diego Garcia. But supporters of US President-elect Donald Trump criticized the deal.

The base, which is home to about 2,500 US military personnel, has been described as an “indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.

The Chagos Islands have been under British control since 1814. In the 1960s and 1970s, Britain forcibly evacuated nearly 2,000 local residents to make way for the US military base, which played a pivotal role in US military operations in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the United States also admitted that the base had been used for secret rendition flights of “terrorism” suspects.

Displaced Chagossians have fought for years in British courts for their right to return to their homeland. Under the terms of the new agreement, they and their descendants will be allowed to return to the islands, despite their exclusion from Diego Garcia.

Mauritius, an African country located about 2,100 kilometers (1,300 mi) southwest of the Chagos Islands, located off the eastern coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.