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UK says will revisit Chagos deal after latest Trump criticism / Photo: - - DoD/AFP
UK says will revisit Chagos deal after latest Trump criticism
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said Wednesday Britain will rework its deal with Mauritius to return the remote Chagos Islands, home to a strategic US-UK military base, amid vocal opposition from President Donald Trump.
The UK confirmed in April it was shelving plans agreed last year to hand back the Indian Ocean islands to its former colony and pay to lease Diego Garcia, home to the base, for a century.
That followed strong criticism from Trump, who had initially supported the pact, but then later branded it "an act of great stupidity".
The unpredictable American leader railed against the deal again in his first meeting Tuesday with Britain's new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who replaced Keir Starmer in July.
Meeting on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Trump said he believed Burnham would be reconsidering the "terrible" agreement, as the UK leader sat beside him, nodded and said "yep".
Burnham later told broadcasters Britain will "work hard" to find a resolution on the thorny issue and that he is "confident we can find it working with our US partners".
Hours later, Streeting echoed the sentiment, saying Trump's opposition was "not news to us" but that his latest comments "provide absolute clarity that his position on this Chagos deal as currently drafted is not changing".
"So we have to do more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where we can support it," he told the BBC.
"The ostrich strategy of sticking our heads in the sand and hoping it (will) go away ... is not a wise strategy when it concerns one of the most sensitive national security assets we have anywhere in the world," he told Times Radio separately.
Starmer struck the deal after insisting that international legal rulings have put Britain's ownership of the Chagos in doubt and only a deal with Mauritius would guarantee that the base remains functional.
Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s.
It evicted thousands of Chagos islanders who have since mounted a series of legal claims for compensation in British courts.
In 2019, the International Court of Justice recommended that Britain hand the archipelago to Mauritius.
The deal would have given Britain 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 ($120 million) a year.
N.Fournier--SMC
