June 7 (Reuters) – The White House is considering a plan to buy the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, the Telegraph reported on Sunday.
U.S. officials have drawn up a proposal to bypass the U.K. and make their own deal to take control of Diego Garcia, the report said.
The plan is among several options being drafted by the White House, in a paper aimed at providing alternatives to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ceding sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius, the report said.
“President Trump has been consistent in his position that the United Kingdom should not give away the British Indian Ocean Territory, which includes our joint U.S.-UK military facility on the Diego Garcia atoll,” a U.S. official told Reuters.
“Diego Garcia’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean makes it a vital and indispensable military installation of significant importance to the national security of the United States,” the official said, adding the U.S. remains in regular discussions with Britain to preserve the island’s viability as a regional security platform.
Britain’s government in April put on hold its deal to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, home to the U.S.-British Diego Garcia air base, which had been criticized by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump said in February the deal was a “big mistake.”
“The government inherited a situation where UK control over the military base on Diego Garcia was under threat and action was required to protect UK national interests and to prevent our adversaries from getting a foothold in a location of such strategic importance,” a UK government spokesperson said.
“Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the U.S., which has protected our shared security for nearly 60 years,” the spokesperson added. ”Maintaining long-term operational control and security of Diego Garcia is the entire basis for the UK-Mauritius agreement, an agreement borne out of the real long-term risks to the base of which both the UK and U.S. are very well aware.”
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan and Rhea Rose Abraham in Bengaluru and Bo Erickson in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese)
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