The British sovereign base areas in Cyprus are, in John Kiriakou’s account, a piece of the island the United Kingdom kept and will not return. Akrotiri is the British air base; the Americans maintain an air base of their own on the island, and a large US contingent is stationed at RAF Akrotiri alongside the British.[1] Of the arrangement itself Kiriakou is blunt: “the British have just sort of lopped off this giant chunk of Cyprus and just won’t give it back.”[1]
Regional role
The island’s bases function as the region’s evacuation point. Americans who need to be brought out of Lebanon, Israel or even Jordan are normally flown to Cyprus.[2] Asked in February 2026 whether the hundreds of aircraft then using the Andreas Papandreou air base signalled preparation for an invasion of Iran, Kiriakou discounted a ground invasion in favour of an aerial bombardment campaign — while confirming the aircraft were operating from air bases in Cyprus.[1]
That posture made the island a target during the 2026 Iran war. Kiriakou, who receives daily updates from a friend in Cyprus he describes as a prominent podcaster, reported three launches against the island — two suicide drones and a missile, all three intercepted. They were, in his assessment, probably headed for the British bases; Cypriots, he said, were terrified.[3]
Asked directly, as a former intelligence officer, whether nuclear weapons are stored at the British bases, Kiriakou declined to claim knowledge he does not have: “as God is my witness, I don’t know.” He noted that he does not even know where American nuclear weapons are based, those being highly guarded secrets held within the ministries of defence — but added that he would guess probably yes.[4][5]
American policy toward Cyprus
Kiriakou, who describes himself as a quarter Cypriot, says the U.S. maintained a weapons embargo against Cyprus for 46 years — a fact he says 99.9% of Americans have no idea about — imposed largely because Cyprus refused to fully toe the American line on issues like Soviet-type weapons for Ukraine. He credits Britain and France, not the United States, with insisting Cyprus deserved the ability to defend itself against Turkish expansionism, arguing Cyprus’s prosperity, democratic government, and Western orientation exist despite rather than because of American support.[6]
On a 2026 visit to Nicosia, Kiriakou recounted checking into his hotel after dark and stepping onto the balcony to call a Cypriot friend, only to look up and see the Turkish flag lit up on the occupied northern side of the city — “these bastards,” he said. He described the British-built bases as part of a landscape in which Greek Cypriots have, over the past decade, begun winning lawsuits in the European Court of Justice against British retirees who bought confiscated Cypriot land in the Turkish-occupied north — land that, he notes, is not Turkey’s to sell.[7][8]