Britain’s government said on Saturday it had put on hold its deal to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands — home to the US-British Diego Garcia air base — which has been criticised by US President Donald Trump.

The planned legislation underpinning the deal to cede the islands to Mauritius, which needs the backing of Washington, would not be included in the government’s next parliamentary agenda, The Times newspaper said.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said London would try to persuade Washington to give its formal approval.

Trump said in February that the deal was a “big mistake”, having previously said it was the best that Starmer would get.

Under the deal, Britain would retain control of the strategically important military base on Diego Garcia on a 99-year lease that preserves US operations there.

A British government spokesperson said ensuring the long-term operational security of Diego Garcia would remain a priority.

“We continue to believe the agreement is the best way to protect the long-term future of the base, but we have always said we would only proceed with the deal if it has US support. We are continuing to engage with the US and Mauritius,” the spokesperson said.

Britain forcibly displaced up to 2,000 indigenous Chagossians in the late 1960s and 1970s to establish the base on the Diego Garcia atoll.

Toby Noskwith, a spokesperson for Indigenous Chagossian People, a campaign group, said there had been some hesitation about the deal from the start from senior people in the Trump administration, perhaps even the President himself.

“We are astonished to have come to this point. This has been framed mainly as a state-to-state issue but the people who have been lost throughout the process are the Chagossians, particularly elders and survivors,” Noskwith said.

He said questions needed to be asked about “the enormous sums of money which have been wasted on a collapsed negotiation, and the legality of conceiving a plan which denied the Chagossians their right to self-determination.” He also said Starmer had to facilitate the dignified resettlement of the Chagossian people.

The alliance between Washington and London has come under strain in recent weeks over Starmer’s reluctance to get involved in the US-Israeli war on Iran and his refusal at the start of the conflict to allow Trump to use British air bases to launch attacks.

US forces have since been permitted to carry out what the prime minister calls defensive strikes.

Trump has also repeatedly criticised the British leader, saying he was “not Winston Churchill” and had ruined what is often called a “special relationship” between Britain and the US.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has posted images on X platform showing portraits of children killed in a US missile strike on a school in Tehran, saying they were accompanying him symbolically on his flight to Pakistan for peace talks.

The images showed children’s photos placed on aeroplane seats alongside backpacks and flowers.

A preliminary US military investigation found outdated intelligence likely led to the 28 February strike on a school in Iran, which killed more than 165 children, in the opening hours of the conflict.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy says the management of the Strait of Hormuz has entered a new stage.

The IRGC Navy made the announcement in a post on its social media account on Friday, two days after a temporary Pakistan-mediated ceasefire went into force between Tehran and Washington following the failure of the US and Israel to achieve their objectives after 40 days of war against the Iranian nation.

“The two days of silence in military battle clearly showed to friends and enemies that the management of the Strait of Hormuz has entered a new phase,” it said.

The announcement echoed Thursday’s remarks by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, who said Iran will “take the management of the Strait of Hormuz to a new stage.”

The United States and the Israeli regime launched their illegal act of aggression against Iran on February 28, but the Iranian armed forces responded by launching 100 waves of missile and drone operations targeting locations in the Israeli-occupied territories as well as US military bases and assets across the region.

Iranian forces also blocked the Strait of Hormuz to oil and gas tankers affiliated with the adversaries and those cooperating with them in an attempt to maintain security at the strategic waterway.

The US sought to form a coalition to open the strategic waterway, asking NATO countries to contribute naval and air assets. However, most of Washington’s allies have declined to commit forces.

Additionally, on Friday, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the country will send a special envoy to Iran to examine the situation in West Asia amid conflicting reports about the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

It added that the decision had been taken during a telephone conversation between top top Iranian and South Korean diplomats.

Meanwhile, Hamid Hosseini, spokesman for the association of Iranian oil product exporters said that the acceptance of Iran’s proposed provisions about the security and legal regime of the Strait of Hormuz as part of the truce agreement can be one of the most important diplomatic achievements in recent decades.

The strait was previously open, but now some international analysts believe that new conditions could benefit Iran, Hosseini noted.