Britain confident Chagos Islands deal on military base will proceed as doubts surface

By Andrew MacAskill and Villen Anganan

Britain is confident its plan to secure the future of a U.S.-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia will be ratified, despite being dismissed by the new Mauritian prime minister and an ally of President-elect Donald Trump.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants to finalise a political agreement that hands Mauritius sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, while securing a 99-year lease on the base.

But the agreement still needs to be ratified by both sides and a new Mauritian government has been formed by former opposition leader Navin Ramgoolam since it was agreed.

Ramgoolam's description of the deal as a sellout before an election this month, in which he ousted Pravind Jugnauth as prime minister, spurred a flurry of diplomacy, with British National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell flying to Mauritius.

Powell will travel to Washington soon for talks to discuss the agreement and broader security issues, an official said.

Right-wing British politician Nigel Farage, a friend of Trump, said this month the deal would be greeted with "outright hostility" by the incoming Republican administration.

Trump's pick for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said the deal poses "a serious threat" to U.S. security by ceding the archipelago - with its strategic base used by U.S. long-range bombers as well as warships - to a country allied with China.

Asked at a press conference on Thursday if he agreed with Farage's comments, Starmer said: "Look the Chagos deal is a good deal that secures the base. That is in the vital interests of the U.S. and the UK."

A spokesperson for the prime minister earlier said he was confident the deal would be finalised.

"It's an entirely usual process for a new administration to study the detail, but all indications suggest the commitment of the new administration to progressing the agreement," the spokesperson told reporters.

British foreign minister David Lammy said on Wednesday he was confident the deal would go through, adding that the U.S. intelligence agencies, State Department, Pentagon and White House had all welcomed it.

When Mauritius became independent after a century and a half of British colonial rule in the 1960s, London retained control of the Chagos Islands, forcibly displacing up to 2,000 people in the 1970s to make way for the base.

Britain said last month it would hand over the islands, after years of sometimes acrimonious negotiations. But many of the exiled Chagossians say they were not involved in the negotiations and cannot endorse it.

U.S. President Joe Biden supported the deal when it was announced, and Jugnauth said it marked the completion of a push to decolonise the archipelago.