Strategically located between East Africa and Southeast Asia, Diego Garcia serves as a surveillance centre for the Middle East. It was critical to air operations during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The UK government announced last week that it will cede sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius. The agreement ends an almost 60-year dispute between the two countries, allowing Chagossians displaced in the early 1970s to return home,

The U.K. has agreed to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands, an archipelago of more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, in a deal to secure the future of a strategically important U.

Mauritius is getting sovereignty over the remote Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, but Britain will continue to administer the strategically crucial island of Diego Garcia for another century, preserving the Anglo-American joint base on

Britain said on Thursday it would cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a deal it said secured the future of the UK-U.S. Diego Garcia military base, and which could also pave the way for people displaced decades ago to return home.

Washington said the deal protected the long-term, secure and effective operation of the strategic military base.

While the UK and US retain a key strategic military base in the Indian Ocean, the two governments remain apprehensive over the security of the island.

Britain on Thursday said it would give up sovereignty of a remote Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius but will maintain there a strategic military base that it shares with the United States, in what US President Joe Biden described as a "historic agreement".