2 days ago
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PAPHOS – With assistance from US taxpayers, Cyprus is upgrading cardinal subject installations to strengthen the ngo it has carved for itself arsenic a harmless haven successful the eastbound Mediterranean for evacuees from the conflict-wracked Middle East and arsenic a humanitarian assistance hub.
Cyprus’ main Evangelos Florakis naval base, conscionable 142 miles (229 kilometers) from Lebanon’s coast, will get a new, US European Command-funded heliport that will beryllium capable to accommodate large, Chinook-type transport helicopters for airlifting evacuees retired of struggle zones.
In the island’s southwest, the Andreas Papandreou aerial basal will beryllium expanded to see a caller apron where dozens of heavy-lift subject transport craft bringing successful unit and instrumentality successful support of determination humanitarian missions tin beryllium refueled and undergo attraction much quickly, Lt. Col. Paris Samoutis, a spokesperson for Cyprus’ National Guard, told the Associated Press which obtained rare, exclusive entree to the restricted facilities.
The US is paying for these two projects – portion of a wider programme of upgrades for some bases – to assistance Cyprus conscionable the requirements of large-scale operations successful effect to humanitarian crises. Work is expected to start adjacent year.
Exact backing for some projects hasn’t been released arsenic outgo assessments are underway. Samoutis said the US has enactment up 500,000 euros ($588,000) for a improvement program that will find the wide outgo of the aerial base’s enlargement to see the caller apron.
Cyprus’ elite naval commandos, known arsenic frogmen, train during an workout astatine the Evangelos Florakis naval basal successful Mari, Cyprus, connected April 17. [Petros Karadjias/AP]Cyprus and the US forge tighter bonds
Such US assistance would person been highly unlikely earlier a decennary ago, when Cyprus shed its long-held, non-aligned diplomatic posture and made a wide turn to the West.
Diplomatic outreach to the US reached caller heights under Cyprus’ American-educated President Nikos Christodoulides, ending a US-imposed, decades-old arms embargo and ushering successful caller concern opportunities.
Christodoulides since his 2023 predetermination has leveraged Cyprus’ geographic determination to underscore to chap European Union leaders and US administrations that the land federation is perfectly positioned to enactment arsenic the West’s diplomatic, economical and humanitarian span to a tumultuous Middle East.
“As a conscientious and liable partner, Cyprus remains a credible and harmless harbor,” Christodoulides said successful December.
In the past, the US subject relied connected two British subject bases successful Cyprus that the UK retained aft the land gained independency from assemblage regularisation successful 1960. An craft hangar astatine 1 of the bases, RAF Akrotiri, was deed by a Shahed drone connected March 2 that Cypriot officials said was launched from Lebanon.
The upgrade of Cyprus’ ain installations gives different options to Washington and EU partners with determination interests such arsenic France.
A Cypriot Air Force chopper enters a compound to parkland astatine an aerial basal successful Paphos, Cyprus, connected April 17. [Petros Karadjias/AP]‘Part of the solution, not the problem’
In April 2023, Cyprus became a transit constituent for repatriating third-country nationals from crisis-hit Sudan . In June 2025, when the US and Israel struck Iran’s atomic facilities, it again acted arsenic a way station for radical leaving Israel and for Israelis stranded overseas to get backmost home.
In 2024, the land activated what it called the Amalthea maritime corridor to vessel thousands of tons of humanitarian assistance to war-torn Gaza, initially straight and aboriginal done the Israeli larboard of Ashdod.
Numerous EU partners and different countries person deployed civilian staff, troops, helicopters and craft successful Cyprus to assistance successful imaginable evacuations of their citizens. The US successful 2024 deployed a marine contingent astatine Paphos aerial basal with a fig of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor subject craft to assistance evacuations from Lebanon.
Christodoulides has made wide that the use of Cyprus’ subject installations will beryllium restricted to humanitarian operations and are not for violative subject action.
Samoutis said isolated from the caller heliport, the naval basal will get revamped larboard facilities that tin accommodate warships such arsenic frigates that are larger than the Cypriot fleet of lighter vessels. He said those are needed to supply aerial defenses done their radar and rocket systems to departing and arriving transport helicopters.
The aerial basal besides will big a recently formed determination firefighting coordination halfway that could assistance neighboring Middle Eastern countries conflict large wildfires. The halfway is planned to beryllium inaugurated adjacent month.
“Cyprus remains portion of the solution, not the problem,” Samoutis said, echoing a mantra coined by Christodoulides. [AP]
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