British Minister for Europe Stephen Doughty is travelling to Cyprus on Wednesday for meetings with senior government officials, his visit coming weeks after an Iranian-made drone struck RAF Akrotiri.
Doughty’s programme includes a visit to the British base at Akrotiri before he travels to Nicosia, where he is scheduled to meet Foreign Minister Konstantinos Kombos, House of Representatives President and DISY leader Annita Demetriou, and AKEL Secretary-General Stefanos Stefanou.
It is the second visit by a senior British official to the island since the war began. Defence Minister John Healey travelled to Cyprus on 5 March.
Britain has reinforced its military presence in the region, deploying the destroyer HMS Dragon, the landing ship Lime Bay, Wildcat and Merlin helicopters, and specialist personnel to coordinate air defences at its bases.
The visit follows a drone strike on Akrotiri on 2 March — the first hostile attack on a British military installation since the war began — and comes as Britain has faced pressure over the protection of civilians living near its sovereign base areas.
Doughty, who has told the British Parliament on several occasions that he is in regular contact with the Cypriot foreign minister, recently met representatives of the National Federation of Cypriots in London. At that meeting he said the safety of Cypriots was a top priority for the British government, and noted that both missile defence and counter-drone capabilities had been strengthened before and after the attack. He added that ways of improving real-time information-sharing with residents near the bases were under review.
Doughty is Britain’s lead official on the Cyprus problem and its primary interlocutor on the issue.
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