Mauritius Wants to Renegotiate Chagos Islands Deal With UK

London announced it had agreed to hand over the Indian Ocean Archipelago in October, but Mauritius’s new government in Port Louis wishes to alter the terms.

Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago and site of a major U.S. military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean leased from Britain in 1966. File Photo

The UK said on Dec. 18 that it still plans to hand over the Chagos Islands, home to a strategically vital military base, to Mauritius, after the Indian Ocean country’s new leader backed out of a deal struck with the previous government.

The two countries announced in October an arrangement to switch sovereignty of the chain of more than 60 islands just south of the equator.