A coalition of advocacy teams and peace advocates has launched a world marketing campaign to take away British navy bases from Cyprus.
The “UK-US: Bases Off Cyprus” initiative kicked-off an webinar final evening, that includes organizations ‘involved in regards to the navy presence on the island’.
The marketing campaign highlights the ‘problematic function’ of British Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) in Cyprus, describing them as “hubs for UK and US navy operations” that support in weapons transfers and intelligence sharing, particularly in regional conflicts.
Jeremy Corbyn – a outstanding British politician who served because the Chief of the Labour Celebration and Chief of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020 – took half.
Critics have dubbed the bases “a long-lasting remnant of colonial rule” and undermine Cypriot sovereignty.
Representatives from numerous organizations, together with the Cease the Conflict Marketing campaign (UK), the Palestinian Youth Motion, and Cypriot teams similar to Genocide-Free Cyprus, Far Proper Watch, and the Cyprus Peace Council, spoke on the webinar.
The British Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs) of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus had been retained by the UK below the 1960 Treaty of Institution. Akrotiri, close to Limassol, hosts a key RAF station for Center Japanese and Mediterranean operations, whereas Dhekelia, close to Larnaca, homes a British Military garrison and is adjoining to the UN Buffer Zone.
These bases cowl round 3% of Cyprus’s territory and stay strategically essential, however their presence is contentious amongst Cypriots, who see them as remnants of colonial rule undermining Cypriot sovereignty.
LONG HISTORY OF OPPOSITION
The continued existence of the Bases was, for the primary time, raised as a problem within the 1987 presidential election marketing campaign, posing probably the most severe problem to the Authorities of the then President Kyprianou.
Kyprianou, who had been elected unopposed after the dying of Archbishop Makarios in 1975, confronted sturdy candidates from each the appropriate and the left within the elections.
The President risked being knocked out within the first spherical of voting, probably leaving a last contest between Glafkos Clerides, the chief of the right-wing Rally Celebration, and George Vassiliou, who had been endorsed by the communist occasion, Akel.
It was Vassiliou who raised the topic of the bases at Episkopi, Akrotiri, and Dhekelia, which in 1960, on the time of independence, had been made sovereign British territory. Beneath worldwide regulation, British possession couldn’t be unilaterally revoked by Cyprus, however any change within the Cypriot perspective would have been seen unfavorably by Whitehall.
Opposition to the bases was not new, however there have been indicators that Cypriot nervousness was rising. That yr, for the primary time, noticed a 4,000-strong peace march towards Dhekelia, and there have been two terrorist assaults towards the bases.
