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Mauritius said on Monday it has not received any proposal from the Trump administration on the Chagos Islands after a British newspaper reported that the White House was considering a plan to buy the archipelago.
“The Mauritian government has taken note of the information reported by the Telegraph,” the government said in a statement.
“As at today, it has not received any official proposal and has not been approached, either directly or indirectly, by the US administration regarding a separate agreement concerning Diego Garcia or the Chagos Archipelago.”
Mauritius reiterated its position on the Indian Ocean archipelago.
“Mauritius’s position remains unchanged: its sovereignty over the Chagos (Archipelago) is non-negotiable,” the statement read.
The Telegraph reported Sunday that a plan to buy the islands was among several options being drafted by the White House.
The paper aimed to provide alternatives to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ceding sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius, according to the report.
Britain’s government put its deal to cede sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, home to the US-British Diego Garcia air base, on hold in April.
The agreement had been criticised by US President Donald Trump, who said in February that the deal was a “big mistake.”
In order to build the base on the Diego Garcia atoll, Britain forcibly uprooted up to 2,000 native Chagossians in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Last year, London consented to grant Mauritius, a former colony, sovereignty in exchange for an annual payment of 101 million pounds ($135 million).
