UK puts Chagos handover deal in 'deep freeze' after Trump criticism - Mander

> London (AFP) – Britain indicated Saturday it is shelving plans to return the Chagos Islands – which hosts the strategic Diego Garcia US-UK military base – to Mauritius, after US President Donald Trump strongly criticised the deal. > Britain struck a deal with Mauritius last year to hand back the Indian Ocean islands to its former colony and pay to lease Diego Garcia, the largest island, home to the military base, for a century. > >Trump condemned the return agreement as “an act of great stupidity” and on Saturday British media reported that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government would drop legislation needed to put the deal into effect. > >A former top government official said London had been effectively forced to abandon the plan as a result of Trump’s opposition. > >“When the president of the United States is openly hostile, the government has to rethink, so this agreement… will go into the deep freeze for the time being,” Simon McDonald, previously the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office, told BBC radio. > >Downing Street said in a statement: “We have always said we would only proceed with the deal if it has US support.” > >Starmer’s office issued the statement in response to reports that legislation underpinning the deal to return the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius was due to run out of time in parliament and that no new Chagos bill would be brought forward. > >The Mauritian foreign minister, Dhananjay Ramful, vowed Saturday to reclaim the islands, which lie some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) northeast of Mauritius. > >“We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process in this part of the Indian Ocean,” Ramful said at an Indian Ocean Conference. > >“This is a matter of justice.” …