Foreign Office Minister Baroness Anelay, speaking at the House of Lords on Tuesday afternoon on relations between Cyprus and Russia, referred her peers to assurances provided by the government of the Republic of Cyprus that agreements signed during President Nicos Anastasiades’s recent visit to Moscow were based on previous arrangements.
“We have been and remain in regular discussion with the Republic of Cyprus about security and defence matters, and have been briefed on the agreement signed in Moscow. The Cypriot Government have assured us that these agreements represent a continuation of existing arrangements,” said the Baroness.
She was responding to a question by Lord Sharkey on what discussions the British government had had with the Governments of the Republic of Cyprus and other European Union member states “about the proposal to establish a Russian military base on Cyprus.”
Rejecting concerns raised by the Liberal Democrat peer regarding military use of Cypriot facilities by Russia, Baroness Anelay said that she did not recognise any such situation in Cyprus. “When speaking to Russian media, President Anastasiades explicitly ruled out the use of Limassol port for military purposes. Foreign Minister Kasoulides also said to the press, after the February EU Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in Brussels, that there was no question of Russian air or naval military bases on the soil of Cyprus. It is a continuation of existing agreements,” she said.
The Foreign Office minister also reiterated the need for “EU unity in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine,” and agreed with Lord Hannay’s comment that “it might be useful to say to the Government of Cyprus that President Putin’s policy in the south-east of Ukraine bears a striking resemblance to the creation” of the self-styled Turkish Cypriot regime in northern Turkish occupied Cyprus.
Replying to another question regarding the permission granted to Greek Cypriots to develop areas within the British Bases in Cyprus, signed during President Anastasiades’ official visit to London in January 2014, Baroness Anelay commented that it had reaffirmed the strong bonds of friendship and partnership between the two countries across many areas. “Non-military development is a further measure of the normalisation of administrative planning laws and shows that the United Kingdom and Cyprus are serious about working together on our shared interests,” she added.