Starmer rules out future US strikes from RAF Akrotiri

A British military base in Cyprus hit by an unmanned drone strike at the start of the Iran war will not be used by the US to target Tehran’s missile sites after an extraordinary international row.

- KATE DEVLIN DAVID MADDOX

Sir Keir Starmer told the Cypriot president that RAF Akrotiri would not be among the UK bases from which the US could launch strikes, hours after it emerged Iran had fired missiles at the joint US-UK Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

As part of the same phone call on Saturday, Nikos Christodoulides demanded that Sir Keir open discussions about the future of the British bases on the Mediterranean island.

While Cypriot politicians have demanded the return of the sovereign UK bases previously, this is believed to be the first time that a Cypriot president has formally requested talks since independence in 1960.

It comes just days after he described them as a “colonial consequence”, amid fears over the island’s security as the conflict in the Middle East escalates.

On Friday, the UK gave Donald Trump the green light to use British bases to strike Iranian missile sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz.