Cyprus remains on alert fearing spillover from the US-Israel war on Iran after a British base on the island came under attack.
A “security threat” was declared and lifted after ten minutes on Tuesday morning at Britain’s Akrotiri air force base.
The alert followed a strike on Monday by drones targeting the air base at Akrotiri that military sources believe was carried out by Iran’s ally Hizbullah in Lebanon.
The UK will send helicopters with counter-drone capabilities and a warship to protect British military personnel in Cyprus, the prime minister Keir Starmer said yesterday.
READ MORE
Starmer confirmed the UK would be sending HMS Dragon, one of the Royal Navy’s six Type 45 air defence destroyers. Paris will dispatch a frigate as well as anti-missile and anti-drone systems to the country, the semi-official Cyprus News Agency has said.
.
In a joint statement with the leaders of France and Germany this week, Keir Starmer said the European bloc would allow the use of British bases to take “proportionate defensive action” to destroy Iranian missiles “at source in their storage depots, or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles”.
Although located far from the field of action, he mentioned British bases in RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean as sites for mounting strikes on Iranian missile sites.
This would also put them largely out of reach of Iran’s ballistic missiles, which have been Tehran’s chief weapon in the war.
Iran has adopted contradictory policies on Cyprus. Its embassy in Nicosia has attempted to reassure the country that bilateral relations remain strong and unaffected by the regional conflict.
The embassy said the two countries had “consistently enjoyed very positive relations, free from any tension or discord,” and both sides remain committed to maintaining and boosting ties.
However, the senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps, gen Sardar Jabbar, said “the Americans have moved most of their aircraft to Cyprus. We will launch missiles at Cyprus with such intensity that the Americans will be forced to leave the island,” Iranian media reported.
Despite incoming missiles and his threat, Washington has requested for Nicosia to serve as a humanitarian corridor for American citizens fleeing the US-Israel war against Iran.
The US reportedly plans to deploy marines to Cyprus to help secure the operation, which will involve Akroteri and other bases in the Gulf.
Evacuations could be conducted from Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, the Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman, countries that have also been targeted by Iran.
The Cypriot economy has been negatively impacted by the war and Cyprus’s location. Flights at Larnaca and Paphos airports to and from the Middle East have been diverted or cancelled.
If the war is prolonged, the tourism sector involving travel agencies, hotels and restaurants could suffer losses. Prolonged closure of Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of Gulf oil is exported, could increase petrol and goods prices, raise the cost of electricity, cause inflation and fuel a recession.
