UK, Mauritius open talks on sovereignty of disputed Chagos Archipelago

Islanders protesting outside the British High Commission in Mauritius after the UK failed to meet a UN November 2019 deadline to withdraw from the Chagos Archipelago. © Chagos Refugees Group

Britain and Mauritius have begun talks aimed at ending a decades-old spat over the legal status of the Chagos Islands, whose population was forcibly cleared in the late 1960s to allow the building of a joint UK-US military installation.

Mauritius lays full claim to the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, currently administered by Britain, which has a joint military base there with the United States.