Govt hits back at opposition; says never changed stand in Chagos dispute
Opposition has claimed that the president's letter amounts to giving up part of the Maldives' territory.
The Maldives has not at any time retracted its stand on the ongoing dispute surrounding the delimitation of the maritime boundary of the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of the Maldives and the Chagos archipelago, and remains steadfast in its position regarding its EEZ in the ongoing case at International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the government said Thursday, responding to allegations by the opposition.
Opposition leader and former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom has sent a letter to ITLOS, which is set to issue its ruling on the delimitation of territorial waters between the Maldives and Chagos on Friday.
In the case:
-
When the UN General Assembly sought the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) advice, in 2019, they suggested that the Chagos islands were under Mauritius sovereignty
-
In the same year, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on United Kingdom to hand over Chagos to Mauritius within six months
Mauritius went to ITLOS to delimitate territorial waters from the Maldives based on the ICJ's recommendations.
The Maldives had voted against the UN resolution at the time, but in August 2022, the country's stand was changed to that of Mauritius via a letter President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih sent to his Mauritian counterpart. This was revealed by Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath during hearings in October.
Opposition has claimed that the president's letter amounts to giving up part of the Maldives' territory.
Hitting back at the opposition allegations, the government in its statement on Thursday said that the decision to back Mauritius at any future UN resolution on the matter was reached following the pronouncement by ITLOS that the ICJ advisory opinion that Mauritius has sovereign rights over Chagos will be fully accepted in the ongoing case.
"The resolution is not in any way related to the issue of delimiting the maritime boundary between the Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago. This was made clear in the government’s communication to the Government of Mauritius, that our support to Mauritius’ claim on sovereignty over Chagos does not in any way prejudice or change Maldives’ ongoing claims at ITLOS," the statement read.
According to the government, in the explanation of vote given following the consideration of the resolution in 2019, the Maldives noted that this vote was not against the resolution, and not reflective of Maldives’ long standing position on supporting decolonisation efforts. The Maldives also noted that the decision was without prejudice to the legal position taken by Maldives at ITLOS and the Submission made by the Maldives to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in 2010, the
The government also denied allegations that the president acted outside of his constitutional mandate with regard to this matter. The government pointed out that:
-
Article 3 of the constitution stipulates that the parliament has to be consulted if there are any changes to the Maldives’ territorial boundaries (12 miles from the coastline); the present case concerns the Maldives’ southern EEZ, whose boundaries have never been, up until the present moment, determined by the Law of Sea Convention
-
Setting the boundaries of the EEZ as stipulated in domestic and international law is well within the mandate of government and that the government will see that those obligations are fulfilled
-
Following Mauritius’ filing of the case at ITLOS, the decision by the government to seek resolution to the case and maximise our interest via ITLOS was discussed and reached in a session of the full cabinet
"In almost a century of constitutional rule, and well beyond that, it should be noted that, contrary to the statement by the Progressive Congress Coalition, the Maldives has never claimed sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago," the statement read.
The government characterised the opposition's allegations as "an attempt to mislead the public and a petty attempt at scoring cheap political points on a matter of great public sensitivity".
"This is apparent in the fact, that the Progressive Party of Maldives were highly supportive of Mauritius’ claims over Chagos in its statement of 24 May 2019, where the Party had called on the government of Maldives to apologise to the people of Mauritius for voting against the United Nations General Assembly resolution and advocated to handover the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius. In this statement, the Progressive Party of Maldives also stated that the vote by the Maldives violates the rights of the people of Mauritius," the government's statement read.
"This is despite the Progressive Party of Maldives’ government voting against the resolution presented by Mauritius to the United Nations General Assembly, to ask the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion, on 22 June 2017."
The government said it was disappointed at attempts by political parties to mislead the public and the international community on an issue such as this.
"The government of Maldives remains confident that the issue of delimiting the maritime boundary between the Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago will be resolved in a fair and equal manner by ITLOS, taking into consideration the arguments put forward by the Maldives regarding this issue," the statement read.
