Mauritius Gives UK Until End of July to Finalize Chagos Islands Deal

MAURITIUS – Following objections from Trump that led to a halt in the transfer agreement, Mauritius gave UK until end of July to finalize the Chagos Islands deal, according to officials on Thursday.

Mauritius Attorney General Gavin Glover said however that the island nation had no insight into whether the US government would ultimately give the required approval for the deal to move ahead.

“We will give them until the end of July. We will wait until then, and at that point, the Mauritian government will have to decide on the way forward depending on what happens in the United Kingdom,” Glover told the island’s national broadcaster after Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam met with a British delegation for their first talks since the UK paused the deal, which would cede the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius while securing a 99-year lease to operate the joint UK-US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.

In February, Trump described the deal as a “big mistake” after having previously said it was “the best that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer would get.”