Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam has questioned the duration of the lease on a US-British military base, he told a local newspaper, a contentious element of negotiations in which the UK plans to cede control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
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Britain struck a deal in October to hand over the Chagos Islands while retaining control of the base on Diego Garcia, the largest island of the archipelago in the Indian Ocean, under a 99-year lease. The agreement has not yet been ratified.
Having ousted the former government in a November election, Ramgoolam criticised the deal, without going into details on the individual sticking points.
Describing Britain’s agreement with the former government as a “sell out”, Ramgoolam told the local L’Express newspaper the lease should also be indexed to inflation and take exchange rates into account.
It should fully recognise Mauritius’ ownership of the islands, he added, which could affect the UK’s unilateral right to renew the lease.
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“It is not only a question of money, but of our sovereignty,” he said, adding that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had been keen to conclude the agreement before president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.