- Britain will work hard to resolve friction over the Chagos Islands accord, Andy Burnham has stated, after Donald Trump previously attacked it as a "terrible" agreement.
- The US president indicated that Mr Burnham would be "looking at" the arrangement following their meeting on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which came after months of US criticism of the deal.
- The £3.4 billion agreement involves Britain ceding the Indian Ocean island chain to Mauritius, while keeping authority over the shared UK-US military base situated on Diego Garcia, the largest island.
- Mr Trump, who has raised security concerns regarding the pact, called it "ridiculous" as he met the Prime Minister and described the installation as "a very important piece of real estate, militarily and strategically".
- Burnham said: “It’s critical to safeguard the future of the base, and that matters to us for security reasons, but also clearly to the United States as well. So what I said in the meeting is that we will work to find that resolution between the different sides, and we’ll work hard to find it.”
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