Cyprus questions use of UK military bases

A week after a drone attack hit a United Kingdom Royal Air Force base on the island of Cyprus, pressure is mounting from within the Mediterranean nation for Britain to remove its military facilities there amid fears the country is being dragged into a wider Middle East conflict.

Hundreds marched in the capital Nicosia on Saturday, holding up banners stating "Cyprus is not your launchpad" and "British bases out", following the March 1 strike on RAF Akrotiri, which was believed to have originated from Lebanon, according to the Cyprus government.

The UK has two bases in Cyprus — Akrotiri and Dhekelia — that were established in 1960 under the Treaty of Establishment, which granted Cyprus independence from the British Empire.

The sites, which cover about 254 square kilometers, remain under British sovereignty, serving as crucial, strategic military, intelligence, and logistical hubs in the eastern Mediterranean.

The drone attack reignited a debate over UK hard power and the future of Sovereign Base Areas, with protesters in Cyprus urging the UK government to keep the island out of the Iran conflict.

"I think that we'd be a lot safer without them here," one protester Shona Muir was quoted by the BBC as saying. "Their presence alone here makes us more of a target," she added.

"They are a danger to our security and should never have been here in the first place," another demonstrator Mathaios Stavrinides told The Guardian newspaper. "We want them closed", he added.

Critics argue that if the UK cannot safeguard its bases, it should lose the right to keep them, reported The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Protester Sergio Velarde, a Mexican who has lived in Cyprus for six years, displayed a placard urging the British military to leave the island.

"It's not fair that the British still have these bases. It's a form of colonialism. It's very weird," he told The Telegraph.

The Cypriot government has emphasized in recent days that it was a UK base, not Cyprus, which was targeted by the drone, and that the island is not involved in the ongoing conflict.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides said on Thursday that the British government's handling of the matter had caused "annoyance", adding that the UK government had not made clear before the incident that the bases would not be used for offensive operations.

The Cyprus Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said the governance of the two bases is in question and urged talks between London and Nicosia.

"There are questions. There are issues. There are concerns," Kombos told BBC Newsnight.

Following the drone strike, the UK bolstered its bases by deploying anti drone helicopters and it is preparing to dispatch additional naval assets to the eastern Mediterranean.

A British Ministry of Defence spokesperson told the BBC: "Our bases in Cyprus play a crucial role in supporting the safety of British citizens and our allies in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East."