evidence: In August 2022, Maldives’ President Ibrahim Solih sent a letter to the prime minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, expressing the Maldives’ government’s support for Mauritius’ claim to the Chagos Islands, which are currently administered by the United Kingdom as part of its British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Solih affirmed that Maldives would back Mauritius’ claim during future votes at the United Nations General Assembly. [...] Some have dismissed Maldives’ new recognition of Mauritian sovereignty over Chagos as the latest in a series of cynically motivated and contradictory positions. For instance, in 1992, Maldives implicitly conceded the U.K.’s sovereignty over the archipelago when Malé negotiated with London to demarcate the EEZ between Maldives and Chagos. But in 2010, Maldives issued a Joint Communique with Mauritius protesting the U.K.’s unilateral authority to declare the area around Chagos a Marine Protected Zone, banning activities such as fishing. Then in 2019, only three years prior to the government’s new position, Maldives voted against General Assembly Resolution 73/295, which urged the U.K. to return Chagos to Mauritius.