Key facts
- Mauritius has not received any official proposal from the US administration concerning the Chagos Islands.
- The Mauritian government reiterated its unchanged position that its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is non-negotiable.
- Reports suggested the White House was considering a plan to buy the islands directly from Mauritius, bypassing the UK.
- The UK government had previously put on hold a deal to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
- US President Donald Trump had criticized the UK-Mauritius deal, calling it a 'big mistake'.
Mauritius has stated that it has not received any official proposal from the US administration concerning the Chagos Islands, following reports that the White House was considering a plan to purchase them directly from Mauritius, bypassing the UK. The Mauritian government reiterated its unchanged position that its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is non-negotiable.
According to The Telegraph, the White House was drafting several options to secure alternatives to the UK ceding sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius. This comes after Britain's government put on hold a deal to cede sovereignty of the islands, home to the U.S.-British Diego Garcia air base, a move criticized by US President Donald Trump as a 'big mistake'.
Britain forcibly displaced up to 2,000 indigenous Chagossians in the late 1960s and 1970s to establish the base on the Diego Garcia atoll. Last year, Britain had agreed to give sovereignty to former colony Mauritius while paying 101 million pounds ($135 million) per year to secure the installation.