There is historical and cultural evidence that Chagos is a Maldivian territory, Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed has said.
In 2019, Mauritius alleged that the Maldives' territorial waters and the territorial waters of Chagos overlapped and took the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). While the Maldives has decided to vote at the United Nations (UN) in favor of recognizing Chagos as part of Mauritius, some believe that the Maldives government's decision is an agreement to give up part of the Maldives' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to Mauritius.
Speaker Nasheed said in a Tuesday tweet that Maldivian navigators have always described Maldives' territory with Chagos included as part of the Maldives. He said a lot of historical and cultural evidence points to Chagos being a part of the Maldives.
Nasheed said Chagos is not an independent country at the moment and that the British maintain sovereignty over the islands. However, there is no room to say that Chagos is not part of the Maldives, he said.
"In 1560, in a letter from the ninth king, the king describes the seven islands of Chagos as Maldivian islands," Nasheed said.
Nasheed further said most Maldivian maps drawn after 1500 show Chagos as the atoll south of Addu.
The Maldives' current actions in the dispute between Mauritius and Maldives on the demarcation of Maldives' waters threaten the loss of part of the Maldives' EZZ. However, the government denies this. The government said the Maldives' decision to support the ICJ ruling on Mauritius' sovereignty over Chagos at the UN and Mauritius' ongoing case against the Maldives at ITLOS on its territorial claim are two different issues. The government has not changed its stance on the issue in ITLOS.
