Britain has used its major air base on Cyprus to move sensitive equipment without scrutiny, declassified files show.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) wrote in a formerly secret 1993 file that RAF Akrotiri plays a “key role in support of the Priority 1, Category A intelligence and communications effort” on Cyprus.
It added that “this secure airhead enables MOD and OGD [other government departments] to move sensitive equipment to and from Cyprus secretly and without scrutiny.”
Cyprus is “one of the few areas where the UK can make a substantial and unique contribution to the UK/US intelligence exchange”, an MoD official wrote in another file from 1993.
The reason was that “its location gives access to certain intelligence targets not otherwise accessible”, though it did not specify these targets.
British bases on Cyprus are just 120 miles away from Lebanon and 220 miles from Gaza.
The discovery comes as Britain plans to build 136 new military antennas at Akrotiri by confiscating 450,000 square metres of marsh land currently used by Cypriots within the so-called Sovereign Base Area.
Speaking at a protest outside RAF Akrotiri on Saturday, local Kourion mayor Pantelis Georgiou told Declassified that British authorities had quietly increased the proposed number of masts from an initial 20.
“They definitely tried to hide information” about the true scale of the project, Georgiou said.
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The government says the flights were only intended to help find hostages held by Hamas.
The files , available at the National Archives but some of which remain partly censored, suggest the Cyprus base could have played a greater role in British operations than previously divulged by the government.
It will add to further suspicions that Cyprus has been used by Britain to covertly supply other intelligence support or arms to Israel during the genocide, as was reported by newspaper Haaretz in October 2023.
Haaretz noted at the time that over 40 US transport aircraft, 20 British transport aircraft and seven heavy transport helicopters have flown to RAF Akrotiri carrying equipment, arms and forces.
By November 2023, Declassified had found four US Air Force military transport flights that departed from RAF Akrotiri in the previous 12 days destined for Israel.
When asked in parliament, the UK government refused to comment on US military operations from its Cyprus base.
The secret 1993 file was written by the secretary of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in its 1993 “Cyprus Garrison Review”.
It noted in reference to Akrotiri that “the need to maintain a strategic airhead and forward operating base in the Eastern Mediterranean is of continuing importance.”
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A classified note from an MoD official to then defence secretary Malcolm Rifkind’s office in May 1993 stated: “It remains important to our relationship with the Cypriot government that we do not embarrass them by revealing publicly the extent of intelligence activity in the sovereign base areas.”
At the time some 4,500 British military and civilian personnel were on Cyprus working “in units operating the communications and intelligence facilities”.
Cyprus has long hosted a wide range of UK and US intelligence facilities notably RAF Troodos , Britain’s spy station on the summit of Cyprus run by GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence agency.
Another file, also marked secret, makes clear the importance of Cyprus to the UK intelligence relationship with the US.
“Through this the UK can repay the US for the enormous amount of intelligence received free from other collection systems around the world”, the note added.
Dominic Chilcott, private secretary to Rifkind when he later became foreign secretary, wrote in February 1996 that the maintenance of the Cyprus bases “remained an overriding national interest”.
“Our possession of them”, he added, “contributes significantly to the transatlantic relationship”.
Britain has two “Sovereign Base Areas” on Cyprus – known as Dhekelia in the east of the island and Akrotiri in the west – which are large, highly secretive military and intelligence installations comprising 3% of the island’s land area.
More than half of voters in Cyprus want to shut down British military bases on the eastern Mediterranean island, a recent poll found.
The post UK used Cyprus base to ‘secretly’ move ‘sensitive equipment’ appeared first on Declassified UK .
UK used Cyprus base to ‘secretly’ move ‘sensitive equipment’
Aggregated summary from an independent source. Read the original at DeclassifiedUK.