The European Council late on Thursday night announced that it “stands ready to assist” the Cypriot government in discussions regarding the future of the United Kingdom’s two sovereign bases on the island, with the government having emboldened its rhetoric regarding their future in recent weeks after the Akrotiri base was hit by an Iranian-made drone.

In one of its conclusions adopted after the day’s summit of the leaders of the European Union’s 27 member states in Brussels, it said that it “acknowledges the intention of Cyprus to initiate a discussion with the UK on the UK bases in Cyprus and stands ready to assist when needed”.

Upon his arrival at the summit earlier in the day, President Nikos Christodoulides had promised that “we are going to have an open and frank discussion with the British government” over the future of the bases. 

“The British bases in Cyprus are something that is a colonial consequence … We have more than 10,000 Cypriot citizens within the British bases. We have a responsibility to those people, and when the situation in the Middle East, we are going to have an open and frank discussion with the British government,” he said. 

Related Articles

Asked whether he wishes for the bases to be “gone”, he said that “we have a clear approach with regard to the future of the British bases”, before adding, “I am sure that you understand that I am not going to negotiate in public”. 

Those comments come a day after he had described the bases as a “colonial remnant”, though he did say on Wednesday that the “level of cooperation” between the British and Cypriot governments is “extremely positive”.

The emboldening of rhetoric on Christodoulides’ part notwithstanding, the British government has thus far appeared to be in no mood to discuss any change to their future, with the UK’s parliamentary undersecretary of state for the armed forces Al Carns said on Tuesday that the bases’ future is “not in question”. 

Carns had also said that when the country’s Defence Secretary John Healey had visited the island earlier this month, “the Cypriot national guard reaffirmed that our relationship is closer now than ever before”.

Earlier, Akel leader Stefanos Stefanou had outright demanded the bases’ abolition, saying  that his party has been “emphasising this for decades, calling for the abolition of the bases”, and that “the challenge now is to make it clear at every opportunity that Cyprus is not and does not want to become a war base”. 

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

In the UK, former prime minister Rishi Sunak had said in the aftermath of the drone strike that Cyprus “is only a target because of our sovereign bases there”, while Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said that the government had “consistently” warned that the British bases could become a target in the event of a conflict in the region.