KUALA LUMPUR: Mauritius is hoping that Malaysia will open a high commission in the Indian Ocean republic.
High Commissioner of Mauritius to Malaysia Issop Patel said it was high time that Kuala Lumpur, which established diplomatic ties with the island nation in 1987, considered opening an embassy in Port Louis to further strengthen bilateral ties, especially economic, trade, culture and people-to-people ties.
“The current bilateral ties are excellent. Our hope is also that Malaysia uses Mauritius as a gateway to the African continent,” he said, adding that the Commonwealth countries were similar in their ethnic and religious diversity.
Issop said this in an interview on bilateral matters after a year of Pakatan Harapan rule.
He said Mauritius was also hoping that Malaysia could support the country’s bid to become an observer in Asean.
The grouping was established on Aug 8, 1967, in Bangkok.
It members are Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Mauritius, which has a population of 1.27 million, achieved its independence from Britain in 1968. It is one of the most stable democracies in Africa and is an international financial centre, with tourism, sugar and textile as its economic mainstay.
Mauritius and Malaysia are both members of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, an inter-governmental organisation aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and sustainable development in the Indian Ocean region through its 22-member states and nine dialogue partners.
Mauritius and Malaysia are also members of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Talking about his impression of the new government, Issop said: “Policies made by the new government that have positively impacted is the creation of the Asia-Mauritius Chamber of Commerce to be officially launched soon,” he said.
On the international front, Issop said Mauritius appreciated Malaysia’s support for the United Nations resolution regarding the fate of the Chagos Archipelago or Chagos Islands, a chain of 60 islands.
Last February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected Britain’s claim of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, saying that the detachment of the Chagos archipelago in 1965 from Mauritius had not been based on a “free and genuine expression of the people concerned”. The ICJ’s opinion was non-binding.
This followed a vote in June 2017, where the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in favour of Mauritius to bring the dispute over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to the ICJ to get the top UN court’s advisory opinion.
Fifteen countries voted against the resolution and 65 abstained.
Malaysia was among the 94 countries which supported the resolution to request for an advisory opinion of the ICJ.
On May 22 this year, 116 UN member countries, including Malaysia, voted in favour of a resolution that urged London to “withdraw its colonial administration” from the Chagos Islands within six months.
Only six countries voted against the non-binding resolution, while 56 abstained.
Mauritius claimed that the Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia, had been wrongfully taken from Mauritius when the British Indian Ocean Territory was established in 1965.
The United States has a major strategic military base in Diego Garcia, the largest among the islands, 1,931 km north-east of Mauritius. - Bernama