Cyprus is warning that there will be “frank discussions” about the future of British bases on the island after the current Middle East conflict is over.
President Nikos Christodoulides said at the European Council summit on Thursday that the “British bases in Cyprus are something that is a colonial consequence” and must be reexamined when current hostilities end.
“We have more than 10,000 Cypriot citizens within the British bases. We have a responsibility to those people,” the president said. “When the situation is over in the Middle East we are going to have an open and frank discussion with the British government.”
Asked whether he would like to see the bases removed from the island, Christodoulides said he is “not going to negotiate in public,” but his government has a “clear approach with regard to the future of the British bases.”
Cyprus was among the nations hit by Iranian drones following the launch of the joint U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran on Feb. 28. The drones, suspected to have been launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon, struck Royal Air Force base Akrotiri.
No casualties were reported, and the base sustained minimal damage, but the sluggish, underwhelming reaction to the attack has been a sore subject for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The British government promised to deploy a military presence to the island immediately to safeguard it against future attacks, including the aircraft carrier HMS Dragon. More than two weeks after that promise, the Dragon is still trying to make its way to Cyprus.
The idea of renegotiating British military presence on the island is not something the president came up with in a vacuum.
Stefanos Stefanou, a member of the Cypriot House of Representatives and leader of the communist Progressive Party of Working People, reminded the public that his party has been “calling for the abolition of the bases” for decades.
“The challenge now is to make it clear at every opportunity that Cyprus is not and does not want to become a war base,” Stefanou said.
Al Carns, the British Undersecretary of State for the Armed Forces and member of parliament, has pushed back on the idea that recent events have divided the British and Cypriots.
Carns said that when Secretary of State for Defense John Healey visited the island earlier this month, the “Cypriot national guard reaffirmed that our relationship is closer now than ever before.”
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The Cyprus question is an unwelcome entanglement for British overseas diplomacy as 10 Downing Street navigates the handover of the Chagos Islands to neighboring Mauritius.
That deal, which Starmer maintains is necessary following an order from the International Court of Justice, would require the joint U.S.-U.K. military base on the island of Diego Garcia to be leased moving forward — an arrangement President Donald Trump has firmly opposed on national security grounds.
