Cyprus lies on an axis of movement, both north-south and east-west. It stands at the crossroads of three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa. During the history the major powers in the region have taken an interest in controlling and settling the island. Its strategic position has always ensured that Cyprus has played a key role in history, but it has also resulted in the island becoming a victim of others’ power politics.
Strategic Importance of Cyprus for the EU
At the 1990s, Soviet Union disintegrated and the Varsaw Pact, than integration efforts of European States.EU need to impact on Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus. Because ıt is necessary in order to control the energy centers.It gives important advantage to the EU. Application of greek Cypriots for the EU full membership in 1990, acceptance of membership application in December, 2002 .That kind of behaviour pattern of the EU has shifted the Cyprus initiative from the UN to the EU.
Largely industrilized EU provide 80% of its oil need from the Middle East, and this proportion is mostly carried to Europe through Mediterranean. Than the EU has been trying to establish sea superiority in Mediterranean and Aegean Sea. EU has involved itself for full membership of Cyprus Because by this way ıt controls strategic units in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Importance of Cyprus for Middle East and Balkan Politics
After the Cold War Period, Middle East and Balkans have become more strictly connected with each other, and in the new world order the struggle for the establishment of hegemony over those two regions has made global rivalry congruent with regional politics. The relation between the Middle East and the Balkans has represented radical increase after 1990s. While crises in the Middle East reflect themselves on the Balkans, the changes in the Balkans have a direct influence on the Middle East. The dissolution of Yugoslavia following the Gulf Crises and the newly emerged strategic balance in the Balkans following the cooperation initiatives in the Middle East have been the significant symbols of the mentioned change in those two regions.Eastern Mediterranean has appeared as a new area which has its own internal balance with in those relations. From now on, not any dependent but a kind of independent Middle East and Balkan politics should be pointed out. Eastern Mediterranean takes place in the center of that Middle East – Balkan Politics, and Cyprus is one of the basic elements in that politics
Cold War period
Britain and the US have had intelligence interests on the strategically placed island ever since the beginning of the Cold War. Beyond providing a base for US spying, Cyprus has been a major launching pad for most of the past half century's US-British military interventions into the Arab world. In the 1950s, US military involvement in Lebanon and Jordan was initiated from the British bases on the island.
The US military also secured rights from Britain to move bomber groups into Cyprus in the event of a global war against the Soviet Union and to launch U-2 spy planes to monitor Soviet military developments.Following abandonment of its military bases in the Suez Canal in 1954,British Prime Minister Anthony Eden stated that British military bases on Cyprus were vital to protecting the flow of cheap Middle East oil to Britain. "No Cyprus", he declared, "no certain facilities to protect our supply of oil. No oil, unemployment and hunger in Britain". Cyprus has traditionally been viewed by European and US colonial policymakers as a strategic Western outpost next to the hostile Arab world. The eastern Mediterranean receded in significance for a while after the Cold War, but the "war on terror" has brought it back into the spotlight, especially with US incursions on the rise in the region.
With US troops in Iraq, Bahrain and Central Asia, and a new US naval base in Djibouti, to US planners Cyprus is an increasingly desirable location for a base to cover the Arab world from the eastern Mediterranean.The US occupation of Iraq, the conflict in Palestine, NATO's expansion east, terrorist attacks in Turkey, increasing US pressure on Syria and Iran and Washington's concerns about oil and other US economic interests in the region have put Cyprus back in focus as a key intelligence and logistics centre.The base would be like those the US is constructing throughout strategic locations in east Africa and Central Asia. A move to Cyprus would be in concord with the current realignment of the US presence in Europe, from Germany to eastern Europe, while maintaining the primary focus of military operations on the Middle East.
Strategic Importance of Cyprus after the Cold War Period
Importance of Cyprus in the New World Order in regard to the new global-regional security strategy. Importance of Cyprus in regard to the newly-emerged energy lines.After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Eastern Mediterranean, South Asia have appeared as the alternative routes for transportation of the Central Asian energy and commercial items to Europe. These energy routes directly arrive İskenderun and Eastern Mediterranean or indirectly arrive Eastern Mediterranean over Eden Gulf, Suez, Black Sea or Straits. Cyprus has stable parameter on those routes.
Importance for new Middle East , Balkan Politics.Importance of Cyprus in the New World Order regard to the new global-regional security strategy. "Cyprus played a crucial role in the Western defence system .The two British bases on Cyprus-established in 1960 and stil active today. During the Cold War, Cyprus was a key part of the NATO security mechanism against the Soviet Union.It was a crucial link in the axis that stretched from West Germany to Turkey.This wrapped around the Soviet Union's south-western flank.
Importance of Cyprus for Turkey
Cyprus has importance for Turkey geographically. The island is only 65 km from Turkey. Turkish coasts completely surround Eastern Mediterranean from the Northern part. Cyprus would support Turkish Security.Than Cyprus has same advantages for Turkey to the control of Eastern Mediterranean. Cyprus is also the key point for Turkish Sea Strategy .Sea zone consisting Caspian, Black Sea Straits Aegean Sea,Eastern Mediterranean , Suez and Persian Gulf.It is also on the line of the water transit routes. Cyprus can be a kind of military concentration area, an important base for air forces and a location for the settlement of long-range misilles than It provides some advantages for intelligence activities.
Eastern Mediterranean Region, described as the core security zone, has been shaping itself as the new regional internal security zone within the new global balance. East Mediterranean Region has become more influential and determinative on those global-regional strategic balance systems. Eastern Mediterranean Security Architecture is the main control point between Eurasia and and Cyprus is the central base for Eastern Mediterranean Security Architecture. In addition to this, although the central area for the South Eastern European Security Architecture is the mid of Balkans, the bottom line point of that regional security architecture is Cyprus. When the oil and gas reserves, appeared in the Caspian Sea after 1990 is taken into consideration, Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus should be regarded as an important transit route for the import and export issues related with that region. In other words, Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus have the ability of controlling energy centers and pipelines connected with those centers. Besides, Eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus is one of the most significant geographies which can supervise sea trade running over Suez and Black Sea. Moreover, water centers and water transportation routes, to be proposed for solving water contraversy in the Middle East Region in the future, will also be on area which Cyprus could easily control. In addition to that, East Mediterranean and Cyprus, which could supervise crucial trade routes and energy centers, directly provide political advantages for the actor having word on East Mediterranean and Cyprus. Last, Cyprus also represents importance for the control of the small rouge states and terrorist groups surrounding Eastern Mediterranean. To sum up, those functions of Cyprus have direct impact on regional stability and an indirect impact on global stability.
Oil pipeline
The strategic importance of the Turkish port of Ceyhan-situated about 70km from the northern tip of Cyprus is increase over the coming years as northern Iraqi oil flows out on the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik pipeline and the ambitious BTC pipeline comes on stream. The US already has a base close to the port, in Turkey's Incirlik air base.The island "could become an offshore financial and services centre" for US corporations.
Arab fears that Cyprus will become a US protectorate have been heightened by Washington's moves to redeploy its military forces in Germany to bases further east.The media reports that the US applied considerable pressure on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his trip to Washington to resolve the Cyprus issue, promising up
to US$35 billion in investments. There are very high stakes for the US, not least of which are the oiland gas resources of the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and North Africa, an expanding military presence throughout the Caucasus and the ambitious Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline.
Why USA wanted base in the Island
Because using the Island as a logistics base would allow the Pentagon more flexibility in planning its interventions in the Middle East and give it firmer control over the oil-rich regions of the Middle East, North Africa and the Caspian Sea, especially at a time when Libya is reopening to Western investment.In addition, it would allow easier supervision of regional sea routes and complement the US military presence in Djibouti that guards the southern access point to Egypt's Suez Canal, by establishing a military presence near the canal's northern exit.
A US base on Cyprus would increase US "emergency intervention capacities" in the Caucasus, Middle East and Central Asia and boost Washington's pre-emptive strike capacity, as well as guaranteeing it a "security belt" in the area.
Cyprus's southern extremity is just 200 kilometres from the Suez Canal.The strategic planning department of the US European Forces Command considers Cyprus a "strategically important place" because of its proximity to the oil fields of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Africa, as well as for the security of the BTC oil corridor.
Washington studed for the possibility of "sending a military force to Cyprus, in the form of a peacekeeping force"."US officials have already proposed this to the TRNC ,stressing the island's strategic importance for the superpower's geopolitical interests", wrote Daily Times diplomatic correspondent. Cyprus would be turned into an "international mandate country" serving the interests of the US and its British ally. NATO is particularly interested in getting access to the Gecitkale airport in the north of the island.
History
