Cyprus is “an operational base” in the context of the Israeli military offensive against Hamas in Gaza Strip. Turkey said this, warning of the risk of widening the conflict after the threats made in recent days by the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Cyprus speaks of “absolutely unfounded” accusations and Greek diplomatic sources underline that “threats against the sovereignty and status of an EU member state are absolutely unacceptable”. In an interview with Haberturk, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidansaid Ankara “warned European actors about the Greek Cypriot administration from the beginning” and added that this area of the island “has become a base of operations.”
“We constantly see from intelligence information that the Greek Cypriot administration in southern Cyprus is a base of operations against Gaza,” Fidan said. And, he continued, “the fact that it is used for operations in the Middle East will not benefit the Greek Cypriot administration nor Greece.”
Fidan also accused the Israeli government of “using Hamas as an excuse to completely destroy the Palestinian resistance movement and legitimize and institutionalize an occupation that has been going on for years.”
For the minister, the risk of widening the conflict will remain as long as “Israel continues with its genocide”. “Lebanon is now on the agenda,” he continued, adding that “it is assumed that Israel will attack Hezbollah in Lebanon” as soon as “it has achieved its main military objectives” in operations against Hamas.
The spokesman for the government of Cyprus, Konstantinos Letymbiotis, immediately branded Fidan’s statements as “absolutely unfounded”. In recent days Nasrallah has warned the island against making airports and bases available to Israel in the event of war with the Lebanese Shiite movement historically supported by Iran.
Hezbollah’s threats to Cyprus
Last June 20th Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, warned of a war “without rules or limits” in the event of a large-scale Israeli offensive against Lebanese militia, threatening that Cyprus could become a target if it allows Israel to use its territory in any conflict. “We are prepared for the worst case scenario and Israel knows it,” he said in his speech broadcast by Lebanese media. “The Israeli enemy already knows what awaits him,” Nasrallah continued, underlining that “more than 100 thousand fighters” are ready to mobilize.
“What we have done on this front is unprecedented, it is an unprecedented defeat for the entity. We have clear objectives and the ability to reach targets that will shake the very foundations of the entity”, added Nasrallah, according to whom if Israel were to unleash “a total war” with Lebanon, “the situation in the Mediterranean will change completely”. “Let the enemy know once again that if open war is declared on Lebanon, we will wage it without limits,” the Hezbollah leader chanted.
Nasrallah then threatened Cyprus with retaliation if the island decided to make its airports and bases available to Israel in the event of war with the Lebanese movement allied with Iran. “Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is a party to the war and the resistance will consider it a party to the war,” Nasrallah said in the speech broadcast by Lebanese media.
But for the Cyprus government these were declarations far from reality. “The insinuations of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah do not correspond to reality,” he told the broadcaster Rik the spokesperson of the Cypriot government Letymbiotis. These are “unwelcome statements and we will take all measures at a diplomatic level”, she added. “Cyprus is in no way involved in hostilities”, the words of the President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulidis on the occasion of the first threats.
In recent days, Cyprus has also claimed its neutrality with respect to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, underlining that ”we are not involved in any war”, the words of Letymbiotis interviewed by the public television CyBc.
“Cyprus is not involved, and will not be involved, in any war or conflict,” he said. ”Therefore, the statements of the Hezbollah leader do not correspond to reality,” he added. Cyprus has ”excellent” relations with Lebanon and would not allow any state to use its territory for military operations against another, Letymbiotis said.
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