The spokesperson at the President's Office, Miuvaan Mohamed has stated that the Maldives has never claimed sovereignty over the disputed Chagos Islands.

When the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution welcoming the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion demanding that the United Kingdom unconditionally withdraw its colonial administration from the Chagos archipelago, Maldives was among the six countries to vote against the resolution in comparison to 116 who voted for it.

Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid later explained the reasoning behind the widely criticized vote, stating that the Maldives voted against the resolution for the fear of losing part of the Maldivian Industrial Zone.

However, Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath told a UN tribunal that the Maldives has changed its stand and agreed to vote at the United Nations to recognize Chagos as a part of Mauritius. The statement has since been met with widespread criticism in the Maldives, with many claiming that the government is giving up part of the Maldivian territorial waters to Mauritius.

Providing further clarification on the issue, Miuvaan said in a series of tweets that the issue of supporting the UN resolution regarding the sovereign control of Chagos and the case at the sea tribunal regarding the disputed territory are two different issues. He added that after the ICJ had ruled that Mauritius will have sovereign power over the Chagos Islands in an advisory opinion, Maldives too had supported the decision like many other countries.

However, Miuvan noted that the Maldives had not changed their stand regarding the claim by Mauritus about the disputed region. Mauritius and the Maldives have been fighting over a 37,000-square-mile expanse of the Indian Ocean before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, with both claiming the fish-rich waters as their own economic zones.

Miuvaan further added that details regarding the case at the tribunal will be shared once all proceedings conclude tomorrow.