Umar Naseer: Will lose 100 percent Muslim stature if Chagos becomes Maldivian territory

Former Home Minister Umar Naseer, on Thursday, remarked that Maldives well lose its 100 percent Muslim stature if Chagos Islands becomes a territory of the archipelago.

Speaking during a function held by Dhivehi National Action (DNA) to mark Victory Day on Thursday night, under the name ‘The war fought, the war which will be fought’ – Umar said that there was something that Maldivian political leaders need to consider when addressing the Chagos Islands issue.

In this regard, he noted that approximately 3,000 natives of Chagos Islands were residing in the UK at present. Therewith, he said that Maldives will lose its 100 percent Muslim stature on the day Chagos Islands becomes a part of Maldives upon independence.

“Following independence, whether Chagos becomes a part of Mauritius or Maldives, these 3,000 natives will return to Chagos. They are not Muslims. If Chagos becomes a Maldivian territory, will we still be a 100 percent Muslim nation? No we will not,” he had said.

Speaking further, Umar alleged that the policy shift by the current administration on the Chagos issue was at the request of India. He stressed that the Maldivian stance on Chagos issue should not have been changed.

He also alleged that the Maldivian foreign policy was currently dictated by India, which is apparent through the policies of the current administration. He claimed that India endorsed Maldivian foreign minister as the president of the United Nations General Assembly, and has been issuing an abundance of loan assistance to the Maldives as the island nation’s foreign policy has been formed the way they want.

The territorial dispute is over an area between the Maldives and Chagos Islands - a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometers south of the Maldives archipelago.

For decades, Mauritius and the United Kingdom have been in a dispute over ownership of the Chagos, after Mauritius claimed the Chagos archipelago as Mauritian territory when Mauritius gained independence from the UK in 1968. Maldives became involved in the dispute as the country's exclusive economic zone overlaps with that of Chagos.

Mauritius lodged the case with the ITLOS under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on August 23, 2019.

Maldives had voted against a 2019 resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for the UK to relinquish claim over Chagos and hand the islands over to Mauritius within six months, citing a formal protest filed by Mauritius protesting against a case lodged by Maldives with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in 2010, asking for Maldives’ continental shelf to be extended beyond 200 nautical miles.

During verbal proceedings in the case in late October, Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath said Maldives had decided to vote in favor of the Chagos decolonization resolution in the UN General Assembly this year, and that the Maldivian president had informed his decision in a letter to the Mauritius prime minister.

The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) said that decisions regarding votes in the UN General Assembly are linked to Maldives’ foreign policy – and that such decisions lie in the purview of the president.

AGO also insists that the decision by Maldives to vote in favor of the Chagos decolonization resolution in the UN General Assembly and the ongoing dispute at the ITLOS are two separate issues and that the vote will have no effect on the dispute.

They also stressed that Maldives’ interests were properly defended in accordance with international conventions and legal principles and decisions before the ITLOS.