US funding helps strengthen island’s safe-haven status

PAPHOS (AP):

With help from United States taxpayers, Cyprus is upgrading key military installations to strengthen the mission it has carved out for itself as a safe haven in the eastern Mediterranean for evacuees from the conflict-wracked Middle East and as a humanitarian aid hub.

Cyprus’ main Evangelos Florakis naval base, just 142 miles (229 kilometres) from Lebanon’s coast, will get a new, US European Command-funded heliport that will be able to accommodate large, Chinook-type transport helicopters for airlifting evacuees out of conflict zones.

In the island’s southwest, the Andreas Papandreou air base will be expanded to include a new apron where dozens of heavy-lift military transport aircraft bringing in personnel and equipment in support of regional humanitarian missions can be refuelled and undergo maintenance more quickly, Lieutenant Colonel Paris Samoutis, a spokesperson for Cyprus’ National Guard, said.

The US is paying for these two projects – part of a wider programme of upgrades for both bases – to help Cyprus meet the requirements of large-scale operations in response to humanitarian crises. Work is expected to start next year.

Exact funding for both projects hasn’t been released as cost assessments are under way. Samoutis said the US has put up €500,000 ($588,000) for a development plan that will determine the overall cost of the air base’s expansion to include the new apron.

Such US help would have been highly unlikely before a decade ago when Cyprus shed its long-held, non-aligned diplomatic posture and made a clear turn to the West.

Diplomatic outreach to the US reached new heights under Cyprus’ American-educated President Nikos Christodoulides, ending a US-imposed, decades-old arms embargo and ushering in new business opportunities.

Christodoulides, since his 2023 election, has leveraged Cyprus’ geographic location to underscore to fellow European Union leaders and US administrations that the island nation is perfectly positioned to act as the West’s diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian bridge to a tumultuous Middle East.

“As a conscientious and responsible partner, Cyprus remains a credible and safe harbour,” Christodoulides said in December.

In the past, the US military relied on two British military bases in Cyprus that the United Kingdom retained after the island gained independence from colonial rule in 1960. An aircraft hangar at one of the bases, RAF Akrotiri, was hit by a Shahed drone on March 2 that Cypriot officials said was launched from Lebanon.

The upgrade of Cyprus’ own installations gives other options to Washington and EU partners with regional interests such as France.

In April 2023, Cyprus became a transit point for repatriating third-country nationals from crisis-hit Sudan. In June 2025, when the US and Israel struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, it again acted as a way station for people leaving Israel and for Israelis stranded abroad to get back home.

In 2024, the island activated what it called the Amalthea maritime corridor to ship thousands of tons of humanitarian aid to war-torn Gaza, initially directly and later through the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Numerous EU partners and other countries have deployed civilian staff, troops, helicopters, and aircraft in Cyprus to assist in potential evacuations of their citizens. The US in 2024 deployed a marine contingent at Paphos air base with a number of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor military aircraft to assist evacuations from Lebanon.

Christodoulides has made clear that the use of Cyprus’ military installations will be restricted to humanitarian operations and are not for offensive military action.

The air base also will host a newly formed regional firefighting coordination centre that could help neighbouring Middle Eastern countries battle major wildfires. The centre is planned to be inaugurated next month.