By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner
Three months before he was assassinated by Israel last September, Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to strike Cyprus if it allowed Israel to use the island’s air bases or other military facilities during a future war in Lebanon.
His threat was not random -- the country has long maintained close economic, political and strategic ties with Israel, much to Hezbollah’s irritation. In recent years, it has hosted multiple joint air defence drills and annual special forces exercises with Israel focused on potential threats from Hezbollah and Iran. The two countries have a defence cooperation program, and Cyprus also has a defence attaché in Israel as part of what it calls “active defence diplomacy.”
Of course, when we say “Cyprus,” we mean the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, which actually controls only the southern, ethnically Greek part of the island. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has been a de facto state ever since the Turkish invasion of 1974 that partitioned the country.
And since the two parts of the island have also caused Greece and Turkey to remain at odds, this has had wider ramifications in the eastern Mediterranean. There is an additional cooperation agreement between Cyprus, Greece and Israel, which, Cyprus maintains, is aimed at “strengthening peace, stability and security in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
Greek Cyprus is also home to two large sovereign British military bases, and it is obligated to help ensure the security of these facilities. In January 2024, the Cypriot government affirmed its neutrality and non-involvement in any foreign military operations, after aircraft launched from the British base at Akrotiri participated in counterstrikes against Yemen’s Houthis, who were attacking shipping in the Red Sea. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides reaffirmed a few months later that his country was not involved in the conflicts “in any way.”
Still, the Akrotiri base has been extensively used in facilitating air transport of military supplies to Israel during the Gaza war. The American military has also used the island to transport assistance to the war-torn territory. So commercial shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean could be directly threatened or caught in the crossfire. Even the Houthis could conceivably launch solidarity attacks at targets, including Cyprus, given their long-range suicide drones and missiles.
While Greece, Cyprus, and Israel have strengthened their ties through formal agreements, the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran in June served as a major endurance test for this evolving trilateral partnership. In the lead-up to Operation Rising Lion, the Israeli name for the attack on Iran, Greece and Cyprus served as pivotal civilian air hubs. Hours before Israel’s assault, its entire civil airline fleet was quietly relocated from Israeli to Greek and Cypriot airports, to protect Ben-Gurion Airport, Israel’s main airport, from potential Iranian retaliation and to guarantee emergency evacuation routes in case of airspace closure. Though reportedly unaware of the full rationale behind the sudden influx, Athens and Nicosia permitted the landings, despite increasing their own exposure to the threat of retaliation.
While much of the international community distanced itself from Israel amid the Gaza and Iran conflicts, Athens and Nicosia sought to actively mediate, aiming to contain escalation without equivocation about Israel’s right to self-defence. On June 14, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, held a direct call with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, while Cypriot President Christodoulides revealed that Iran had asked Cyprus to deliver a message to Israel.
Greece and Cyprus value the strategic relationship they have cultivated with Israel to counterbalance Turkey. For Israel, the reliability of Greece and Cyprus confirmed the relevance of the trilateral alignment. Israeli Ambassador to Greece, Noam Katz, captured this sentiment in an interview June 21, underlining the broader extent of this relationship:
“The Greece–Israel friendship is based on shared values and interests. We face common challenges and opportunities for the inter-connectedness of Indo-Pacific and Europe, and we maintain open channels of communication. Even where we may disagree, Greece is a friend. A very good friend.”
Greece, Cyprus, and Israel have advocated for greater U.S. involvement to strengthen their alignment in what is known as the “3+1” mechanism, established in 2019 during a trilateral summit in Israel with then-U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo alongside leaders from the three states. Cyprus and Israel view this as an opportunity to bolster American priorities such as the Abraham Accords, the agreements that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries.
On the other hand, Turkey’s support for Hamas has dimmed any possibility of rapprochement with Israel, so Turkish Northern Cyprus is increasingly viewed by Israel as a potential military threat, and a hub for intelligence activity and coercive operations by Turkish security forces. According to Western intelligence, drone and missile bases in Kyrenia and Famagusta (Girne and Gazimagusa in Turkish) pose a direct ballistic threat to Israel.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “Blue Homeland” (Mavi Vatan) doctrine calls for aggressive use of the Turkish navy to assert sovereignty in disputed areas of the Aegean. Turkish vessels routinely challenge Greek and Cypriot ones, even in their own exclusive economic zones. Disputes over maritime boundaries and energy exploration rights have led to heightened tensions in contested waters. So, as long as the expression “the enemy of your enemy is your friend” holds true, the “3+1” relationship will endure.
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