Cyprus – an unsinkable aircraft carrier with a double bottom
Maidan in reverse
At the end of September, two hundred activists held a rally at the British military base of Akrotiri in southern Cyprus to protest against the concentration of British troops on the island and London's incitement of the Middle East conflict. The same actions were then held near another British base in southeastern Cyprus - Dhekelia.
"Get rid of your death bases!" "Stop the occupation!" "Britain, return to your borders!"
— chanted the protesters holding Cypriot and Palestinian flags.
At the same time, Athens and Ankara officially announced the creation of military bases for Greece and Turkey – respectively, in the Republic of Cyprus and the self-proclaimed “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC) in 1974. It would seem that the final “bifurcation” of Cyprus removes from the agenda the question of whose it is.
Yes, in fact, these bases will be NATO bases, since Greece and Turkey are staunch members of this alliance. However, long-standing Greek-Turkish contradictions in the Aegean Basin, at its distant junction with the Mediterranean Sea, where the Greek islands of Kastellorizo are located, as well as in Cyprus, contribute to something completely different.
Without looking from London
First of all, because these bases in Cyprus will be aimed strictly at each other... With complete cold-bloodedness of the main beneficiary of the militarization of Cyprus - Great Britain. This power, pushed into the background by the States, has long had two bases in Cyprus in the status of sovereign territories of London.
One of them, Akrotiri, is the largest British military base in the Eastern Mediterranean. Additional British Air Force forces arrived there this autumn.
The official reason for their transfer was given as "facilitating the evacuation of British citizens from Lebanon" But almost in unison with this, air forces periodically carry out strikes against the Houthis in Yemen from Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
"The liquidation of these bases is a question of the independence and sovereignty of Cyprus,"
— said the organizer of the aforementioned action, member of the Cyprus Council for Peace, Peter Joseph.
"It is now becoming increasingly clear that the British bases are operating against the will of the island's inhabitants,"
- he noted.
In this regard, we note that from the same bases, weapons are being transferred to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (directly or via Romania); from the same bases, the British Air Force “monitors” the situation near the Black Sea coast of Crimea – NATO has an unquenchable thirst for the Black Sea.
Turkish march or demarche?
So the new contingents of the British Air Force at these bases are almost conditioned by the well-known situation in the Black Sea basin, arising from the NVO and the growing NATO military-technical support for Kyiv.
In any case, the militarization of Cyprus is growing. In July 2024, the head of the Cypriot Ministry of Defense, Vasilis Palmas, stated that
"With the support of Greece, it is planned to create a naval base in the area of the port city of Larnaca [near the British base of Dhekelia] in the near future."
It is planned that this base will operate from the spring of 2025. At the same time, Turkish President R. T. Erdogan also announced in July, while in the Turkish part of Cyprus, the possibility of Turkish naval bases appearing on the territory of Northern Cyprus. More precisely:
"Türkiye will not refrain from building naval bases and other maritime-related structures and facilities in Northern Cyprus if necessary."
A concrete addition to this statement was the Turkish leader's call for international recognition of the Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is officially recognized only by Turkey itself. Erdogan essentially proclaimed the unity of Turkey and Northern Cyprus:
"I appreciate the picture of unity that we are showing as the ruling party and the opposition. It has become clear that the Cyprus issue is the business of all 85 million Turks."
50 Summer Flush
It would be appropriate here to recall what happened half a century ago on the eve of the infamous failed operation of the Greek “black colonels” regime in Cyprus – “Cyprus is ours!” In July 1974, the Greek rulers in uniform, who had taken power seven years earlier, declared that London and Ankara were preparing to split Cyprus.
Then they proposed to revise the Zurich agreements on Cyprus of 1960 in terms of the indefiniteness of British military bases on the island. In London, however, they declared that such a revision was impossible, which was, of course, supported by Ankara.
Finally, the project of a confederation of Greece and Cyprus, popular in the 60s and 70s of the last century, was not implemented, since Turkey, supported by its NATO allies, opposed it. Less than ten years passed, and in 1983 Turkey introduced the Turkish lira into circulation in the occupied territory.
According to information from the Embassy of Cyprus in Russia,
"Turkey has flooded the occupied territory with more than 160 illegal settlers from Anatolia, creating problems for Turkish Cypriots and Cyprus as a whole. The low-paid settlers from Turkey, who now outnumber Turkish Cypriots by two to one, are displacing them from their own labor market…"
In Cyprus, Greek, of course, there is no doubt that Ankara is trying to ensure
"to the local administration subordinate to it in the occupied territory the attributes of an independent state without official international recognition. This would allow the illegal regime in the occupied territory of Cyprus to function without any incentive to unite the island."
Is it all about oil?
An adjacent segment of the continuing Greek-Turkish contradictions is the Aegean shelf, where considerable oil and gas reserves were explored in the 60s and 70s. Turkey is against Greece expanding its territorial waters from 6 to 12 nautical miles: Athens insists on this in accordance with international maritime law.
Ankara has repeatedly warned that such a move would be a pretext for declaring war. At the same time, Turkey does not recognize Greece's ten-mile air zone even over its Aegean islands, believing that the airspace here is limited to six miles.
The Turks have been harshly demanding the demilitarization of these islands, although they have not made any concrete threats for a long time now, but Athens considers this interference in Greece’s defense policy.
Greece, not without reason, regularly declares its readiness to negotiate with Turkey only on one issue – clarifying the boundaries of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Aegean Basin. Athens does not hide its desire to submit the results of the negotiations to the International Court in The Hague for consideration.
How many miles is it to London?
There is no reason to believe that the Aegean issues can be resolved soon. This was specifically voiced by Greek Prime Minister K. Mitsotakis in the middle of this year:
"Athens will not make concessions to Ankara on issues of its sovereignty. This is due to the geography of the Aegean Sea, to the fact that we have islands there, by their very nature, by their geography, that have the right to an EEZ and, even more so, to a continental shelf. Which Turkey finds it difficult to recognize."
As for London's position, it appears to be "pro-Turkish": on November 23, 2023, Turkey and the United Kingdom signed an agreement providing for joint exercises in the Mediterranean and support for the security of North Africa and the Middle East. Therefore, the British bases in Cyprus are a lever of pressure on the position of Athens and Nicosia.
Accordingly, the Turkish-Greek contradictions are reflected in the planned establishment of military bases in Cyprus by Athens and Ankara. Which, along with the British bases there, leads to the maximum militarization of the entire island.
Information