Cyprus pressing Britain to pay up for Bases Article Published: 18:45 20/04/2007 Article Classification: Kakopetria Cyprus
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The Cypriot Parliament yesterday told the government it should ask London to pay up for money it owes to Cyprus for the use of the British Bases over decades.

The unanimous resolution comes six days before Britain’s Minister for Europe Geoff Hoon flies to Cyprus to continue fence-mending talks with Foreign Minister Yiorgos Lillikas.

Last week’s arrest of firebrand MEP Marios Matsakis by British Bases police while on a European Parliament fact-finding visit to the Akrotiri antenna site has cast a longer shadow over a traditionally strained relationship between Cyprus and its former colonial ruler – now both equal members of the European Union.

Though Matsakis has since been released on health grounds, his arrest shocked public opinion and revived the debate on the sovereign status of the British Bases and the rights of the ordinary citizens living within SBA territory.
Britain retained 99 square miles of sovereign territory on two bases here when Cyprus became independent in 1960.

Besides guaranteeing the independence and territorial integrity of the Republic, it undertook to pay for the use of Cypriot infrastructure.
Under appendix R of the 1960 treaties giving Cyprus independence, London undertook to pay £12m by way of a grant within five years.
After that period, Britain would hold consultations with Cyprus in order to “determine the amount of financial aid” to be provided to the island “in the following period of five years.”

Rebuff
London has repeatedly rebuffed demands for payment. Even yesterday a British source told The Cyprus Weekly “we have discharged our financial responsibilities that had arisen from the Treaty of Establishment.”

The House resolution came at the end of a debate initiated by Edek leader Yiannakis Omirou who contended that there was a separate deal between Cyprus and the UK to cover London’s financial obligations for the use of the bases.
He said the British government had paid at the end of the first five-year term, but has since refused to make any additional payments.
“This refusal by the British government to fulfil its explicit legal commitment by paying this financial aid to the Cyprus Republic every five years constitutes a treaty violation for which the Cyprus government must at long last take action with all available legal means,” he said.

Omirou said that there were legal arguments backing Nicosia’s case. The government should therefore make an official demand seeking the money. If this is not paid, then the government had no other choice but to resort to international courts, he added.
House president Demetris Christofias seized on the debate to reiterate the wish of all political parties to see the closure of the bases.

Sovereignty
“We do not exercise sovereignty over the territory of the bases. We challenge their sovereignty over the bases,” he said.
Christofias said that political parties, parliament and the government should ask legal experts to look into the issue of the status of bases.
An in-depth study by experts would allow the National Council to examine the issue and determine a policy on what should be done.
“Certainly we want the bases abolished. The how and the when and the rest we must look at responsibly. We must look at the economic aspect and everything relating to sovereignty,” he concluded.

Hoon arrives in Cyprus on Wednesday at the personal invitation of the foreign minister. According to a British High Commission statement, Hoon and Lillikas will continue discussions that began in London and Brussels aimed at improving UK-Cyprus bilateral cooperation as partners in the European Union.
They will have a meeting with officials at the Foreign Ministry followed by a tete a tete lunch.

Relations between Nicosia and London have been strained following what Greek Cypriots see as a pro-Turkish policy bias following their rejection of the Annan Plan