The Exceptional Case of the British Military Bases on Cyprus

Abstract

As is widely known, Cyprus was the place used as springboard for all the US–British air operations in the region surrounding it, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and so on. However, neither the Republic of Cyprus, nor the breakaway regime in the north of the island had anything to do with that. The logistical hub for those activities were the so-called Sovereign British Military Bases conceded to Britain in the 1960 Zurich Agreement in return for the independence Cyprus gained in the same year. Cyprus is the only place on the planet where the United Kingdom maintains as a legacy of British colonial rule sovereign military bases and a military presence secured as a result of a multilateral treaty of guarantee far surpassing those rights that the United Kingdom had managed to have recognized in the installation of military bases in Burma, Malta and Ceylon. Nevertheless, two things are very remarkable: why has the United States, despite its numerous other facilities in the Near East, preferred those bases for its activities? Why have the British clung on to their bases in Cyprus – in spite of the retreat of British forces from so many bases originally built by the United Kingdom in so many places around the world since 1960, although in comparison with other overseas garrisons still left of the British Empire, the one in Cyprus is the biggest and the most expensive to maintain? The article tries to illuminate the background of this paradox. It examines, based on primary and secondary sources from several countries, the historical evolution and regime of the UK Sovereign Military Bases on Cyprus, which constitute an exceptional case in both international relations and international law. It argues that the operation of the British bases in Cyprus has been exceeding the legal framework determined by the Treaty of Establishment and hardly complies with the British obligation to decolonize the entire territory of the island of Cyprus as well as the right of the Cypriot people to self-determination.