Britain hands over control of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

The British government signed a deal on Thursday to switch the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after a final-minute injunction following a challenge in court by two Chagossian females used to be lifted by a mediate.

UK High Minister Keir Starmer talked about the decision to hand over sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius ensures the lengthy bustle of a US-UK protection force nasty.

“This is absolutely vital for our defense and intelligence, and therefore, for the safety and security of the British people. The full assessment of why this is so important is highly classified,” Starmer talked about at a press convention on Thursday.

The Indian Ocean archipelago is house to a strategically well-known naval and bomber nasty on an extraordinarily noteworthy of the islands, Diego Garcia. Below the agreement, the UK pays Mauritius 101 million kilos per 300 and sixty five days to lease aid the nasty for a minimum of ninety 9 years.

The signing used to be delayed for a number of hours after a UK mediate imposed a final-minute injunction blocking off the switch. That used to be later lifted by any other mediate.

A history of contested claims to the archipelago

One of the final remnants of the British Empire, the Chagos Islands were beneath British control since 1814. Britain fracture up the islands a ways from Mauritius, a dilapidated British colony, in 1965, three years sooner than Mauritius won independence.

Britain evicted as many as 2,000 of us from the islands in the 1960s and Seventies so the US protection force can also kind the Diego Garcia nasty, which has supported US protection force operations from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Displaced Chagossians fought unsuccessfully in UK courts for years for the factual to hasten house. Below the deal, a resettlement fund would be created to attend displaced islanders cross aid to the islands, in its place of Diego Garcia. Miniature print of such a measures remain unclear.

Mauritius has lengthy contested Britain’s claim to the archipelago and in soundless years the United Countries and its top court cling urged Britain to return the Chagos to Mauritius, round 2,100 kilometers southwest of the islands. In a non-binding 2019 understanding, the Global Court docket of Justice ruled that the UK had unlawfully carved up Mauritius when it agreed to stop colonial rule in the gradual 1960s.

The British government says those rulings build the lengthy bustle of the Diego Garcia nasty, a will need to cling to UK security, at stake.

By the deal, London hopes to retain the protection force nasty purposeful for the lengthy bustle.

Critics of the deal cling nonetheless shown scepticism relating to the set aside stamp of the agreement and Mauritius’ heavy dependence on Chinese language imports, which has raised issues for nationwide security.

Negotiations on handing the islands to Mauritius started in 2022 beneath the earlier Conservative government and resumed after Starmer’s Labour Birthday party used to be elected in July.

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