Mauritius Blasts Trump’s Iran Strikes, Ties Concerns To Strategic Island It Claims To Own

Mauritius lashed out over the legality of American strikes on Iran while demanding that Britain finalize a deal to hand over an island chain it granted the U.S. permission to use against Iran.

The island nation’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on the Chagos Archipelago, led by Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam, released an official communiqué on March 3 targeting both the U.S. and Israel shared by Mauritian outlet Minority Voice. The panel claimed international lawyers argued that the American and Israeli strikes on Iran and the Islamic regime’s retaliatory attacks on third-party nations “have no legal underpinning under international law.” The committee also called out the use of bases in the operation, doing so days after Britain gave the U.S. permission to use Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos islands.

“Mauritius, mindful of its commitment to the international rules based order, calls for an immediate ceasefire and recourse to peaceful means of resolving disputes between the States concerned,” the statement continued.

The officials pressed London to finalize the May 2025 Chagos Archipelago treaty, which would transfer sovereignty over the island chain, including Diego Garcia, to Mauritius. The committee complained that the agreement “has not yet entered into force” despite both sides pledging to move quickly, adding there remained “no visibility” on when the transfer might happen. (RELATED: UK Can’t Defend Its Own Military Bases As Broke Country Forced To Step In)

The Government of Mauritius has issued a statement today complaining about the delays to ratifying Labour’s Chagos Surrender Treaty, the US action against Iran, and Chagossians resettling on the Chagos Islands.

Mauritius is a friend of China and if Labour’s Chagos Surrender goes… pic.twitter.com/uQr2m8TIUF

— Priti Patel MP (@pritipatel) March 3, 2026

Diego Garcia hosts a 12,000-foot runway, a deep-water port, submarine berths and prepared military stockpiles, according to the Brussels Signal. The base serves as a critical launchpad for Middle East operations and power projection toward the Persian Gulf. Analysts have raised alarms that China’s growing infrastructure investments in Mauritius could threaten exclusive Western control of the facility after a sovereignty transfer, the outlet reported.

President Donald Trump said in a March 1 interview that he was “very disappointed” in British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for initially refusing to let American forces use Diego Garcia during the Iran strikes. The president slammed the Chagos deal in response.

Trump had already torched the agreement over a month earlier on Truth Social, calling the planned handover “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY” and warning that China and Russia took note of the move.

British Conservative MP Priti Patel shared the Mauritius communiqué on X and cautioned that the country’s relationship with China could jeopardize Western security and the U.S.-U.K. alliance. Patel urged the British government to scrap the treaty entirely.