President Mohamed Muizzu has decided to withdraw a letter sent by former president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to the prime minister of Mauritius on the sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago and to challenge the ruling of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on the Maldives’ maritime boundary.
Muizzu announced the decision during his presidential address at the opening session of Parliament on Thursday, saying he acted after consultations with cabinet ministers and local and international legal experts.
He said advice from experts indicated that the letter sent by the former president had adversely affected the Maldives’ national security and maritime territory.
Muizzu said the government would not recognise the maritime boundary determined by the ITLOS, which delimited the boundary between the Maldives and Mauritius in the southern Indian Ocean.
The president said he was also in talks with the British government over the Chagos Archipelago. He said he had sent two letters to the British government stating that the Maldives had a stronger claim to Chagos than Mauritius and had also held a telephone conversation with the British deputy prime minister.
Under the ruling, the Maldives was awarded about 92,563 square kilometres of disputed maritime area, while losing around 45,331 square kilometres from what the state had traditionally claimed as part of its exclusive economic zone.
Referring to archipelagic baselines set out in the Maritime Areas Act, Muizzu said the Maldives’ exclusive economic zone was already clearly defined in domestic law.
Muizzu said experts had also advised that the Maldives had suffered irreparable damage due to decisions taken by the previous administration in relation to the case.
He announced the establishment of a commission of inquiry under powers vested in the president to investigate the handling of the issue and decisions taken by the former government.
Legal experts had also recommended the creation of a special government office to manage legal, technical and diplomatic work related to the maritime boundary dispute, he said.
The dispute is linked to the Chagos Archipelago. The ITLOS relied in part on an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which stated that sovereignty over Chagos lies with Mauritius and that the United Kingdom’s former administration of the islands was unlawful. The advisory opinion influenced the maritime delimitation between the Maldives and Mauritius.
The Muizzu administration has accused the Solih administration of legal missteps during the proceedings. The former government has denied the allegations.
The move marks the first publicly known instance in modern Maldivian history of a sitting president withdrawing formal correspondence sent by a former president to another head of government.
Muizzu said the government would pursue legal and diplomatic action to reassert the Maldives’ position on the southern maritime boundary linked to the Chagos dispute.