Reference......
5.
The question of our contribution to UNFICYP is, incidentally, imminently due to become a live issue once more, quite apart from the context of your review, in that the UN mandate is due for renewal next month and Ministers will need to consider very soon whether to agree to another six months extension (which the other countries with direct interests in the Force are likely to press for) and whether the British contribution in men and money should remain as at present (on which point, Northern Ireland apart, the Ministry of Defence would normally support the FCO against expected opposition from the Treasury).
6.
On your point about stationing two accompanied battalions in Cyprus and meeting the UNFICYP commitment from them, we have long held the view (which the Secretary of State accepted when the Treasury pressed us to use the SBA battalion as an UNFICYP reserve) that it is essential to keep the British presence in UNFICYP separate from the Britis presence in Cyprus under the Treaty. This is still very much the view of the High Commission. UNFICYP Headquarters con- sider that they cannot be closely associated with the British bases without prejudicing their posivion in Cyprus and the High Commissioner endorses this view. Certainly it would lead to an appreciably greater involvement of the bases in the internal affairs of Cyprus which would be most undesirable. It might to some extent be possible to overcome the difficulty presentationally. If, for example, we were to say that the UK considered it necessary to put its contribution to UNFICYP on a better basis than a series of emergency tours by in future sending an accompanied battalion, we could, perhaps, expect a general welcome (except, no doubt, from the Treasury) for so clear a statement of our continued interest, and so clear a commitment to our future involvement, in UNFICYP. This might outweigh objections to the blurring of our UNFICYP and our Treaty presence at least temporarily, though I am inclined to think that in the long run the blurring would be unfortunate and potentially dangerous. I rather doubt whether it would be acceptable to UNFICYP. I understand that the UNFICYP conditions of service which specify unaccompanied forces (except for a few posts) are designed to avoid the extra costs, responsibility and status questions attendant upon an accompanied force. There is no objection to families as such. For the UK, these special problems would not arise in Cyprus where our UNFICYP forces, in theory at least, get double status cover from the UN Status Agreement and from the treaties. Subject to the views of lawyers, which I think we should get if we go ahead with these ideas, I would have thought we had no real status problems and we bear our own costs anyway.
But I really wonder whether UNFICYP would consider it acceptable to have one element of the force accompanied while the rest is not.
1
CONFIDENTIAL
/Also