‘Any threat against Cyprus is unacceptable’

Any threat against Cyprus is unacceptable, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday during a meeting with his country’s leader of the opposition Nikos Androulakis.

“Any threat against the Republic of Cyprus, a member state of the European Union, is unacceptable in principle. Greek diplomacy and the upgraded Greek armed forces are placed at the service of universal Hellenism,” he said.

On this front, he said that “I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today, our flag and our heart are in Cyprus”, with his Defence Minister Nikos Dendias, four fighter jets, and two frigates having been deployed to the island in the last 24 hours.

“From there, we are following developments very carefully. Obviously, we all seek and desire a rapid de-escalation, knowing historically that every time we had widespread conflicts in the Middle East region, we have had very unpleasant geopolitical impacts and humanitarian crises,” he said.

Androulakis, meanwhile, said that he had contacted Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides to express his “full solidarity”, before praising the Greek response to the drone strike which hit Cyprus shortly after midnight on Monday.

“Our country has consistently been a pillar of security, a pillar of respect for international law in the wider region. That is why my position is that our military presence under the current circumstances in the eastern Mediterranean must be linked to the protection of Hellenism, and in particular, Cypriot Hellenism,” he said.

To this end, he stressed that Cyprus is “closer to the war zone”, and that “there should be no scenario of the country being involved in the war being waged by the United States and Israel with Iran”.

He also said that Greece must act as “the ‘voice’ of Europe in the wider region”, and that as such, “we must also take initiatives at the European level”.

“At the European level, there must be a common European strategy against this new reality, which can create turmoil and new dangerous conditions of instability for European peoples,” he said.