The British government said on Saturday it had halted plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius following criticism from US President Donald Trump.
The small collection of islands in the Indian Ocean is home to a military base that is used by both the UK and US.
London last year agreed to a deal to hand over these islands to its former colony Mauritius, but since then it has been under Trump’s target.
Why is Britain putting a halt to its plans to return the Chagos Islands?
Despite initially appearing to accept the deal, the US President later called it a “big stupid move”.
This would allow Britain to retain control of the military base on Diego Garcia with a 99-year lease and an option to extend which would allow the US to maintain its operations there.
But the deal required formal approval from Washington.
A British government statement said, “We believe an agreement is the best way to protect the long-term future of the base, but we have always said we will only move forward on an agreement if it has US support. We are continuing to negotiate with the US and Mauritius.”
“When the President of the United States is openly hostile, the government has to reconsider, so this deal… will be on the back burner for some time,” Simon Macdonald, formerly the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office, told BBC radio.
What has been the reaction to the U-turn on the Chagos Islands deal?
Mauritius, which lies about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) southwest of the islands, has said it will continue its efforts to take control of the islands.
Mauritius Foreign Minister Dhananjay Ramful said, “We will leave no stone unturned to seize any diplomatic or legal avenues to complete the process of decolonization in this part of the Indian Ocean.”
Indigenous Chagossians, 2,000 of whom were displaced in the 1960s and 70s to make way for the military base, also criticized the change in the plan.
Toby Nosquith, a spokesman for the Indigenous Chagossian People campaign group, said, “We are surprised to have gotten to this point. This has been framed primarily as a state-to-state issue, but the people who have lost out in the whole process are the Chagossians, especially elders and survivors.”
UK-US ‘special relationship’ in trouble
The so-called “special relationship” between Britain and the US has reached a historic low during Trump’s second presidency, with the Chagos Islands agreement playing a key role.
Trump’s differences with NATO allies, first over Greenland and then over their lack of support in the war with Iran, appear to have had a particularly big impact on UK-US relations.
In January, amid his first criticism of the Chagos Islands agreement, Trump said: “There is no doubt that China and Russia have absolutely taken notice of this act of weakness.”
He used this as an excuse to justify his ambitions to take Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
London was reluctant to allow the US to use joint bases for attacks on Iran amid questions about the legality of the war. However, Diego Garcia was one of two bases that the US was allowed to use for “defensive operations” during the war with Iran.
Edited by: Jennifer Cimino Gonzalez