In the 1960s, the US requested a naval and air base in the Indian Ocean in exchange for provision of nuclear submarine technology to UK. Originally, the UK offered Aldabra (now part of the independent Seychelles), but wide public outcry, in view of Aldabra's conservation importance, diverted this to Diego Garcia, which was much less known at the time. For reasons that were apparently not fully thought out, the US wanted the islands to be uninhabited and, strangely, this was applied to the whole of the huge archipelago. In a manner which all parties now accept as disgraceful, the UK deported all the inhabitants, giving rise to a dispute which continues today.