(Bloomberg) -The UK has agreed to clap an archipelago of the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, while retaining control of a strategic military base on one of the islands, ending a prolonged negotiation that has become a controversy for British Prime Minister Keir. Under the agreement with Mauritius, the UK will pay an average of £ 101m ($ 136 million) annually for the continued use of the facility, Starmer told a news release on Thursday in the first confirmation of the terms of the treaty. The UK said the net present value of the payments is £ 3.4bn, due to the way the government’s accounting measures are long -term investments. The finalization of the agreement achieves an important goal for foreign policy for more deteriorating as it ends the uncertainty about the future of the base on Diego Garcia, a strategically valuable British-American facility that gives rapid access to East Africa, the Indo-Pacific, the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf. It was used during American campaigns in the Middle East and Afghanistan and also offers a critical satellite communication system. “The base is one of the most important contributions we make to our security relationship with the United States,” Starmer said during the briefing. “We had to act now because the base was threatened.” The British and US control over the base was called into question by the UK’s plan to devise the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which followed a ruling from the International Court of Justice in 2019 that Britain’s continuing administration of the islands was illegal. Mauritius, a country of about 1.3 million people, has strengthened ties with China over the past few years, which has aroused US concerns about Beijing’s expanding military and economic influence in the region. The Chagos Islands agreement is controversial, given the large amounts of money that Britain will pay to Mauritius to maintain control of Diego Garcia. The UK’s most important opposition conservative party and the reform of Nigel Farage regularly attacked the agreement, with Farage previously called a ‘surrender’. The agreement announced on Thursday ends six months of additional discussions between the two countries, after the new Mauritian government led by Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam dissatisfaction on an initial agreement announced on October 4. “It’s a big win for us and the Mauritic nation,” Ramgoolam said. “It completes the process of decolonization that began in 1968.” However, the announcement of the agreement was stopped on Thursday by a last minute challenge of a British citizen born in Chagos, who claimed that the agreement would violate the rights of the indigenous population of the Chagos Islands that were not properly involved in the negotiations. The legal challenge was the last chance for Chagossian people to ensure access to their homeland, “advocates for the plaintiff, Bertrice Pompe, said in court’s runners. argued that it impeded National Security Issues and Foreign Relations. Island, driven to make room for the base, which started in 1973. Special was terminated earlier this year when Trump said he “tends to continue” with the decision and spoke to Starmer in the White House during a meeting.
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