The UK's planned handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius should beryllium considered by incoming US President Donald Trump earlier it goes ahead, Downing Street has said.
Efforts were made to get the pact signed earlier President-elect Trump's inauguration connected Monday, the BBC understands, and it had been expected the Mauritian furniture would o.k. the connection connected Wednesday.
The UK plans to manus implicit sovereignty of the clump of islands successful the Indian Ocean, but to support a 99-year lease implicit the associated UK and US subject airbase connected the largest island, Diego Garcia.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was "perfectly tenable for the US medication to see the detail" of immoderate agreement.
The woody has drawn disapproval from politicians successful the UK arsenic good arsenic the incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said it poses a "serious threat" to US security.
Reports had suggested Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam would motion disconnected the woody connected Wednesday arsenic helium attended a furniture meeting, but it was aboriginal announced his lawyer wide was travelling to London to proceed talks.
The UK took power of the Chagos Islands, oregon British Indian Ocean Territory, from its past colony, Mauritius, successful 1965 and went connected to evict its colonisation of much than 1,000 radical to marque mode for the Diego Garcia base.
Mauritius, which won independency from the UK successful 1968, has maintained that the islands are its own, and the UN's highest tribunal has ruled, successful an advisory opinion, that the UK's medication of the territory is "unlawful".
At Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir defended his plan, insisting it was the champion mode to safeguard the subject base.
However, Conservative person Kemi Badenoch said the premier curate was "negotiating a concealed woody to surrender British territory and taxpayers successful this state volition wage for the humiliation".
Badenoch said determination was "no mode we should beryllium giving up British territory successful Chagos" and claimed Sir Keir was "rushing a woody which volition beryllium disastrous".