At this same time, the UK and U.S. began talks with the objective of establishing a military base in the Indian Ocean region. The base would need to be on British Territory as the U.S. had no possessions in the region. The U.S. was deeply concerned with the stability of the host nation of any potential base, and sought an unpopulated territory, to avoid the U.N.'s decolonisation requirements and the resulting political issues of sovereignty or anti-Western sentiment. The political posture of an independent Mauritius, from which the remote British islands of the central Indian Ocean were administered, was not clearly known, but was of a nature expected to work against the security of the base.