UK delays debate on Chagos deal after Trump backlash: Reports

LONDON

A planned parliamentary debate on UK's deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has reportedly been delayed Friday following backlash from US President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been forced to withdraw the Chagos Islands bill, which was expected to be debated Monday in the House of Lords, The Telegraph reported.

It said the legislation was delayed after the Conservatives warned it could violate a 60-year-old treaty with the US that enshrines British sovereignty over the archipelago.

The debate over the Chagos Archipelago deal resurfaced after Trump criticized the agreement signed by the UK and Mauritius as "an act of great stupidity."

In May, the UK and Mauritius signed a deal to give sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius in exchange for allowing the US and UK to continue operating a strategically important Diego Garcia military base for the next 99 years.

The agreement has not yet entered into force as it is pending domestic ratification.

"The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of great stupidity, and is another in a very long line of national security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired," he wrote earlier this week on his Truth Social platform.

The Chagos Archipelago, or the Chagos Islands, is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of the Maldives.

In the late 18th century, France took control of the Chagos Archipelago and Seychelles, as dependencies of Mauritius, and slaves from African countries were transported to work on coconut plantations on the islands.

Britain took over the islands, including Mauritius, in 1814 after the defeat of Napoleon under the Treaty of Paris.

In 1965, the UK separated the group of islands from Mauritius, which claims it was forced to give them away in exchange for independence in 1968.