UK hands sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius
The UK has announced it is giving up sovereignty of a remote but strategically important cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean after more than half a century.
Seems to me like the British and US got a pretty good deal, able to maintain their base which is highly strategic to interests in the region. While saving face and not maintaining a remnant of a Colonial empire.
GuyfromKK on
Would this be the first transfer of sovereignty of a territory between two nations in the 21st century?
ortaiagon on
Makes everyone involved look very grown up.
Outside_Error_7355 on
The only benefit to holding them for the UK is the military base which it says will remain. Provided the assurances around that are sufficiently solid I suspect that the logic is just that it is no longer worth the reputational hit from holding the islands. Specifically to appease African pressure as part of a general move to get them on side vs Russia etc as the article says.
I assume that the US must have approved such a move and be satisfied that the assurances on the base are iron clad as they will not be giving that up any time soon. Strategically absolutely vital and they will be paranoid about Chinese influence if they give them up.
My view is that I don’t think this is really worth it for the UK – this won’t be significant enough to really matter to anyone and it was always a niche issue. It will probably make other rumbling disputes (primarily the Falklands, possibly Gibraltar to some extent) flare up. Mauritius are motivated by economics and fishing rights rather than moral outrage primarily anyway. But others will disagree.
4 Comments
Seems to me like the British and US got a pretty good deal, able to maintain their base which is highly strategic to interests in the region. While saving face and not maintaining a remnant of a Colonial empire.
Would this be the first transfer of sovereignty of a territory between two nations in the 21st century?
Makes everyone involved look very grown up.
The only benefit to holding them for the UK is the military base which it says will remain. Provided the assurances around that are sufficiently solid I suspect that the logic is just that it is no longer worth the reputational hit from holding the islands. Specifically to appease African pressure as part of a general move to get them on side vs Russia etc as the article says.
I assume that the US must have approved such a move and be satisfied that the assurances on the base are iron clad as they will not be giving that up any time soon. Strategically absolutely vital and they will be paranoid about Chinese influence if they give them up.
My view is that I don’t think this is really worth it for the UK – this won’t be significant enough to really matter to anyone and it was always a niche issue. It will probably make other rumbling disputes (primarily the Falklands, possibly Gibraltar to some extent) flare up. Mauritius are motivated by economics and fishing rights rather than moral outrage primarily anyway. But others will disagree.