British bases on Cyprus can exert control over Middle East

Britain's disengagement from plans to take part in attacks against Syria by western countries has cause sighs of relief to Cypriot officials who would not like to see the eastern Mediterranean island being dragged into an un-agreeable situation. Britain sent 6 Typhoon interceptor aircraft and also several larger support planes to its air force base at Akrotiri, near the southern Cypriot city of Limassol on Thursday, prior to the vote in the British parliament which stopped Prime Minister David Cameron's plans to be part of the action. A military spokesman had said that the planes were sent as a "precautionary measure to ensure the protection of UK interests and the defence the Sovereign Base Areas at a time of heightened tension in the wider region." The phraseology was meant not only to placate British public opinion but also to comply with key provisions of a treaty which state that the bases can be used by Britain only defensively to protect British interests. The Cypriot government has guardedly indicated to Britain that it would not be happy to see the bases on its territory being used for offensive action against Syria. Parliament also endorsed by consensus a statement flatly opposing such use, citing the danger of the island being at the receiving end of rockets fired from Syria, only 100 kilometres to the east. Yet, sources told Xinhua that as it happened in the past, the British planes could make their presence prominent in the area during eventual action by American ships against Syria by patrolling the skies of the eastern Mediterranean invoking the need to protect the bases and the interests of the United Kingdom. Cyprus lies at a strategic spot in the eastern Mediterranean and the British bases can militarily control access to the Suez Canal, provide surveillance of the entire eastern basin of the Mediterranean and easily influence developments in the volatile Middle East region. The island's strategic importance marked its fate as a base of some kind or other, almost from the start of time. Greek coastal traders established city-states more than 3,500 years ago, giving the island its Greek character. Phoenicians (inhabitants of the area which today roughly corresponds to Lebanon and Syria) also used it as a commercial knot. Persians, Egyptians and then again the Greeks had in turn control over the island. The Romans then used it as a stepping stone to the eastern parts of their empire. When it was split the island became part of the Byzantine Empire. It was then conquered by Middle Ages Crusaders and then by the mighty Venetians until they were replaced by the Ottoman Empire. The island was finally acquired under a commercial deal in 1878 by the British who used it to control the flow of oil from Iraq and Persia and also the routes to the Middle East and India. British foreign minister in the 1950s, Antony Eden, put it very succinctly when Cypriots started a campaign to end British colonial rule: "No Cyprus, no certain facilities to protect our supply of oil. No oil, unemployment and hunger in Britain. It is as simple as that ... " Cyprus was Britain's last retreat in the region in the early 1950s, when Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and closed down British military facilities on Egyptian soil. Britain hurriedly hired a large workforce of Cypriots who were faced with extreme poverty in the aftermath of World War Two to expand its military installations in no time at all to host thousands of its soldiers being evacuated from Egypt. Thus, it was no surprise that Britain stubbornly insisted on keeping sovereignty over chunks of Cypriot territory when it agreed to grant independence to Cyprus after a four-year long guerilla anti-colonial campaign. Negotiations over the size and the exact nature of what later became to be known as British Sovereign Areas lasted several months in late 1959 and 1960. Archbishop Makarios, the leader of the Greek Cypriots at the time, had to grudgingly accept the presence of British bases on the island but waged a tough bargain on the issue, which was a sensitive one for Cypriots after their war for independence. A journalist who attended almost daily briefings by Makarios in the late 1950s told Xinhua that the discussions centered both on the status and the extent of the area Britain would retain as bases. "Makarios used to recount details of the negotiations which dragged on for many months, saying that he would never accept an area that would be over 100 square miles," the journalist said. The two sides compromised on 99 square miles (which was actually 98 square miles when marked on the map -- but Britain dictated its position on the status of the bases). Under the 1960 Treaty of Establishment giving independence to Cyprus, Britain would retain sovereignty over their territory but it could not administer them as colonies, set up commercial ports or airports, customs or frontier barriers. There are no physical marks to separate the territory of the bases from the rest of the island, but they have a separate administration, police force and judicial system. About 60 percent of the bases' land is privately owned mainly by Cypriots and some British. About 7,000 people, mostly Greek Cypriots, live in villages within the sovereign base areas and there are also some 7,000 British, both military personnel and members of their families who live mostly in a British style town on a hilltop overlooking the Mediterranean. Though technically being British soil, the bases were expressly excluded from the territory over which the European Union has jurisdiction, meaning that Britain can control the establishment of residence on their territory. There are two British sovereign areas on Cyprus, the eastern SBA (Sovereign Base Area) at Dhekelia, east of the city of Larnaca, which takes up 50.5 sq miles (about 131 sq km) and the western SBA at Akrotiri, west of the city of Limassol, which covers 47.5 square miles (123 sq km). The most important of the bases is by far that at Akrotiri, Dhekelia being mainly a barracks area which is home to some regiments of the British army. At present it is mostly empty due to cuts on military spending. Akrotiri is considered to be the most important NATO air base in the eastern Mediterranean. Though public attention is mostly focused on military air operations, the base also hosts what are believed to be the most powerful eavesdropping electronic facilities in the region which are said to be capable to keep watch on military movements as far as the far east. Recent press articles said these electronic facilities at Akrotiri form part of the so-called ECHELON, an automated global interception and relay system operated by the intelligence services of the United States, United Kindom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to intercept satellite-based communications. In recent years, Akrotiri served British and wider NATO military operations in many cases. The air force base was extensively used to provide support for the British forces in Iraq during the early 1990's and most recently to help establish a no-fly zone over Libya during the 2011 campaign. Since 2001 it has been used to provide logistics support to the allied forces in the Afghan campaign and also serves as a staging area, providing a short stay to western soldiers on their way to Afghanistan or back from the country.