LONDON: Britain’s foreign secretary David Lammy said it was right that the new US administration has the chance to review a deal with Mauritius over the future of a US-British military base in the Indian Ocean.
“It’s right and proper that the new administration is able to consider it,” Lammy told BBC Radio on Monday. Under the deal Britain, which has controlled the region since 1814, would cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands - a former colony that became independent in 1968 and the last British overseas territory in Africa - to Mauritius.
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It would also retain control under a 99-year lease of the military base on Diego Garcia, something that outgoing US President Joe Biden had said would secure its effective operation into the next century.
But Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick as secretary of state, has said the deal poses a threat to US security by ceding the archipelago - with its base used by US long-range bombers and warships - to a country allied with China.
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