Could the protracted dispute over the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean finally be drawing to a close? Britain steadfastly insisted for decades that it was the rightful owner of what it called British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
But it did an apparent about-turn on 3 November 2022 when Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announced the United Kingdom (UK) had entered negotiations with Mauritius ‘on the exercise of sovereignty’ over the ‘Chagos Archipelago/BIOT’ and that it expected a resolution early in 2023.
The Chagos Archipelago comprises over 60 islands in the Indian Ocean about 2 000 km north of Mauritius – and only about 1 000 km south of the Maldives. Yet it was once part of what was then the British colony of Mauritius – until 1965 when departing Britain, in effect, purchased it from Mauritius just before the latter’s independence in 1968.
