Nothing has been ruled out regarding the future of the United Kingdom’s bases in Cyprus, President Nikos Christodoulides said on Friday.

He was asked about the matter upon his arrival at the headquarters of the health insurance organisation (HIO), having earlier held a meeting at the presidential palace with the head of the UK’s secret intelligence service MI6, Blaise Metreweli.

No statements were made after that meeting, with Christodoulides remaining coy later in the day.

The UK’s Akrotiri air force base had been hit by an Iranian-made drone in the early hours of Monday morning, with the ensuing days having seen the validity of the bases’ presence, and their potential future, brought to the fore of public debate.

Parliament on Thursday night did pass a resolution condemning the strike, but the resolution did not pass unanimously, with Edek, the Ecologists’ Movement, and Alexandra Attalides of Volt abstaining, and Akel – parliament’s second-largest party – as well as independents Kostis Efstathiou and Irene Charalambides voting against it.

Akel’s rejection of the resolution came after it had submitted a resolution of its own, which called for “protection of the Republic of Cyprus from the dangers created by the presence of British bases on its territory”.

The party had said earlier in the week that the drone strike “confirms the dangers which exist for Cyprus and our people due to the presence” of the British bases on the island.

“In any case, the demand of our people for the dissolution of the British bases from our island once again proves to be both timely and timeless,” it added.

Opposition to the bases’ existence is bicommunal, too, with Turkish Cypriot opposition political party CTP deputy leader Asim Akansoy having said on Tuesday that the UK’s continued possession of two sovereign bases on the island is “a great mistake of history”.

The base itself is sovereign British territory, having never been incorporated into the Republic of Cyprus when the remainder of the island was given independence in 1960.

The status of the bases has remained unchanged since then, though the UK’s government of the day did offer to surrender almost half of the territory which they encompass if the island had been reunified under the 2004 Annan plan.

“The offer is being made to maximise the chances of a settlement being accepted by both sides,” the UK’s foreign office said in 2003, with Tassos Papadopoulos, the president of the day, having described the offer as “more than welcome”.

“We’ve always said that the bases were a part of the price of winning our independence,” he said at the time, though the following year, he was instrumental in the campaign for the plan to be rejected at a referendum which took place in 2004.

While an almost two-thirds majority of Turkish Cypriots voted in favour of the plan, over three quarters of Greek Cypriots voted against it, and as such, it was never implemented, and Cyprus remains divided.