London/Port Louis: There may be bad news for Mauritius with Britain, on Saturday, hinting that it might pause plans to hand back the Chagos Islands, after facing criticism from US president Donald Trump.
The largest island of the archipelago hosts the US-UK strategic military base of Diego Garcia.
Under the Chagos agreement of May 2025, the islands – some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) northeast of Mauritius – were to be returned to that country by Britain. Diego Garcia was to be retained and Britain was to pay for its century-long lease.
Trump has initially backed the deal, but changed his mind in January 2026, calling it “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY” in a social media post.
BBC Radio quoted a former top government official saying that the government had been effectively forced to abandon the plan as a result of Trump’s opposition.
“When the president of the United States is openly hostile, the government has to rethink, so this agreement… will go into the deep freeze for the time being,” Simon McDonald, previously the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office, said, as reported by News18.
“We have always said we would only proceed with the deal if it has US support,” UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s Downing Street office said in a statement.
The statement was issued in response to reports that legislation underpinning the deal to return the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius was due to run out of time in parliament and that no new Chagos bill would be brought forward.
Mauritius foreign minister Dhananjay Ramful, on Saturday, vowed to “spare no effort” to reclaim the islands.
“We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process in this part of the Indian Ocean,” Ramful said at an Indian Ocean Conference held in Mauritius.
“This is a matter of justice,” he added.
Downing Street said the government would continue to “engage with the US and Mauritius”.
“Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US. Ensuring its long-term operational security is and will continue to be our priority – it is the entire reason for the deal,” the Downing Street spokesperson added.
Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s.
Thousands of Chagos islanders were evicted who have since mounted a series of legal claims for compensation in British courts.
The International Court of Justice, in 2019, recommended that Britain hand the archipelago to Mauritius.
Under the deal, Britain was to be given a 99-year lease of the base, with the option to extend. The UK government has not said how much the lease would cost but has not denied reports it would be £90 million ($111 million) a year.
