UK to Rework Deal to Return Chagos Islands to Mauritius After Trump's Opposition

LONDON: Britain will rework its deal to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a minister confirmed Wednesday, after US President Donald Trump branded the agreement "terrible" during his first meeting with UK leader Andy Burnham. London's decision to hand back the Indian Ocean archipelago to its former colony and pay to lease a strategic US-UK military base on Diego Garcia has been a bone of contention with Trump's administration for months. The UK confirmed in April that it was pausing the plans agreed last year between the Mauritian government and Britain's then-prime minister Keir Starmer. It faced vocal opposition from Trump, who had initially supported the pact, but then later branded it "an act of great stupidity". The unpredictable American leader railed against the deal again Tuesday in his first face-to-face with Burnham, who replaced Starmer in July. Meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Trump said he believed Burnham would be reconsidering the "terrible deal", as the UK leader sat beside him, nodded and said "yep". Burnham later told broadcasters Britain would "work hard" to find a resolution on the thorny issue and that he was "confident we can find it working with our US partners". Hours later, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said Trump's opposition was "not news to us" but that his latest comments "provide absolute clarity that his position on this Chagos deal as currently drafted is not changing". "So we have to do more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where we can support it," he told the BBC on Wednesday. Streeting confirmed that annual payments worth at least £120 million ($159 million) to lease back the military base from Mauritius would not be made "at this stage". Starmer struck the deal after insisting that international legal rulings have put Britain's ownership of the Chagos in doubt and only a deal with Mauritius would guarantee continued US and UK use of the base.