British close to deal on Kalo Chorio war games plan

By Anthony O. Miller

BRITISH Sovereign Bases Area (SBA) forces yesterday inched closer to ending all use of the Akamas peninsula for SBA troop military exercises, British sources told the Cyprus Mail.

A meeting yesterday morning between officials of the government, the British High Commission and the Bases “went well,” High Commission Spokesman Piers Cazalet said.

SBA Spokesman Captain Jon Brown echoed Cazalet, calling the talks “extremely useful” towards ending British forces’ use of the environmentally fragile Akamas peninsula.

Neither Cazalet nor Brown ventured to say when talks about the matter might end. Brown said more talks were planned for Monday and Friday of next week.

Meanwhile, SBA authorities continued to honour the moratorium they began early this month on holding military exercises in the Akamas. No date has been set for any further SBA forces war-games on the island, Brown said.

“The use of the Akamas is on hold for the moment,” Brown said, adding the National Guard’s offer of the use of its firing range at Kalo Chorio as a substitute was daily looking more inviting.

Brown said SBA personnel had trekked throughout the Kalo Chorio site to see if, topographically and otherwise, it was suitable for SBA war-games, and had given the base passing marks.

The chief concern appears to centre on questions of access, Brown and Cazalet indicated: how often per year SBA troops could use the Cypriot firing range; for what length of time each time; how much notice – if any – SBA authorities would have to give the National Guard before deploying troops there for exercises.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.