Britain has signed a deal to hand over sovereignty over the disputed Chagos Islands to Mauritius, with the government saying the move secures the future of the US-British military base there - vital to British security, the Associated Press reported today, BTA reported.
The base is on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. It is a strategically important naval and air base where bombers are based.
Under the agreement, the United Kingdom will pay Mauritius an average of 101 million British pounds ($136 million) a year to buy the right to use the base for at least 99 years.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the base, run by US forces, was crucial to Britain's counter-terrorism and intelligence efforts and was "underlying our safety and security at home".
"By agreeing to this deal now on our terms, we are providing strong protections, including from malicious influence, that will enable the base to operate well into the next century, helping us to maintain security for future generations," Starmer told reporters at the UK military headquarters in Northwood, near London.
According to critics of the deal, which still needs to be approved by parliament, the transfer of sovereignty over the islands – British territory for over two centuries, puts them at risk of interference from foreign powers such as Russia or China.
Conservative defence spokesman James Cartlidge described the deal as a "total, humiliating abandonment of our territory and a fundamental betrayal of the UK's national interest".
The deal was struck amid resistance from indigenous people on the islands, who were evicted decades ago to make way for the base.
The deal was due to be signed by Starmer and Mauritanian leader Navin Ramgoolam in a video conference ceremony yesterday morning, but was delayed by several hours after a UK judge granted a last-minute injunction blocking the transfer at the request of two Chagoss activists. The order was later overturned by another judge.
The displaced islanders have been fighting unsuccessfully in UK courts for years for the right to return home. Chagoss natives Bernadette Dugas and Bertrice Pomp, who brought the lawsuit that delayed the signing of the agreement, fear that once Mauritius takes control of the islands it will be harder for them to return to their homeland.
The agreement creates a trust fund for the benefit of the Chagoss people and says that "Mauritius is free to implement a resettlement programme" on the islands, except Diego Garcia. But the agreement does not require the residents to be resettled.
Pomp said it was a "very sad day" but vowed to keep fighting. "We have been fighting for these rights for 60 years," she told the Supreme Court. "Mauritius will not give them to us," Pompeo explained.
The Chagos Islands are one of the last remnants of the British Empire, having been under British control since 1814. The United Kingdom separated the islands from Mauritius, a former British colony, in 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Britain evicted about 2,000 people from the islands so the US military could build a base on Diego Garcia, which has supported US operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. It has facilities to house nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and large aircraft and plays a key role in gathering intelligence from the US.
Mauritius has long disputed Britain's claim to the archipelago, and the UN and the International Court of Justice have insisted that Britain hand over Chagos to Mauritius, which lies about 2,100km southwest of the islands. In a non-binding opinion in 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled that Britain had illegally partitioned Mauritius when it agreed to end colonial rule in the late 1960s.
"We had to act now because the base was under threat," Starmer said, adding that Mauritius was likely to sue Britain within weeks and that the UK had no "realistic prospect of success".
The British Ministry of Defence said the deal included significant safeguards, including a 24-mile (39-kilometer) exclusion zone around Diego Garcia, a British veto on development on the larger islands and a ban on the presence of foreign security forces on the islands.
Negotiations to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius began in 2022. under the previous Conservative government and were resumed after Keir Starmer's Labour Party took power in Britain in July.
A draft agreement was reached in October, but it was delayed by a change of government in Mauritius and disputes over how much the UK should pay for the right to use the base.
The UK has also delayed the process of reaching an agreement to consult with the new administration of President Donald Trump after the change of government in Washington.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the agreement, saying it "ensures the long-term, stable and effective operation" of the Diego Garcia base - "a vital asset for regional and global security".