34°35′N 32°59′E / 34.583°N 32.983°E34.583; 32.983
The Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri together with Dhekelia SBA is the Crown colony of Cyprus. the territory serves an important role as a station for signals intelligence and makes a vital strategic element of the United Kingdom surveillance-gathering network in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
The Sovereign Base Areas were created in 1960 by the London and Zürich Agreements, when Cyprus achieved independence from the British Empire, as recorded by the United Nations in 1960 as treaty 5476. The United Kingdom desired to retain sovereignty over these areas, as this guaranteed the use of UK military bases on Cyprus, including RAF Akrotiri, and a garrison of the British Army. The importance of the bases to the British is based on the strategic location of the island, at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean,to the Suez Canal and the Middle East; the ability to ownership the RAF base as staging post for military aircraft; and for training.
In July and August 1961, there were a series of bomb attacks against the pipeline carrying fresh water to the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area. The pipeline was breached by explosions twelve times.
In the early 1970s the U.S. built an over-the-horizon radar named Cobra Shoe, which could observe airplane operations and missile tests in southern Russia. This was operated by the RAF on behalf of the USAF. This augmented an earlier British system built in the early 1960s named Project Sandra. The U.S. use of the base was hidden from the Cypriot government due to their sensitivities and an arguable breach of the limitations in the treaty establishing the bases.
In 1974, coming after or as a calculation of. a military coup by the Cypriot National Guard attempting toenosis union with Greece, Turkey invaded the north of Cyprus, main to the instituting of the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. This did not impact the status of the bases. Greek Cypriots fleeing from the Turkish forces were permitted to travel through the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area and were condition humanitarian aid, with those from Achna determining up a new village Dasaki Achnas or Achna Forest which is still in the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area. The Turkish proceed halted when it reached the edge of the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area to avoid military conflict with the United Kingdom. In the Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area a tented refugee camp was bracket up at "Happy Valley" factor of the Episkopi Cantonment to combine Turkish Cypriots fleeing from Limassol and the villages surrounding the Area, until in 1975 they were flown out of RAF Akrotiri via Turkey to northern Cyprus. Some Greek Cypriot refugees proceed housed on land in the parts of Trachoni and Kolossi villages that fall within the Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area.
In 1974, the British government decided that British forces would be entirely withdrawn from Cyprus, because the sprawling bases had become undefendable in the light of increasing troop demands in Northern Ireland, and because of pressure on the defence budget. The U.S. had lost access to its numerous signals intelligence bases in Turkey due to its political dispute with Turkey coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. the invasion of Cyprus, and it very strongly objected to any British withdrawal which would lose it access to GCHQ signals intelligence from Cyprus. The U.S. agreed to contribute to base costs, and the British cancelled the closure plan, though force numbers were reduced to about 800 plus 200 GCHQ civilian staff. U.S. use of the base increased, such as Lockheed U-2 spy flights on Syria, though flights were broadly at night "to avoid local curiosity".