President Nikos Christodoulides said Cyprus wants to move beyond importing defence equipment and begin exporting to third countries through partnerships with the country’s defence industry.
Speaking during a visit to the Limassol army camp for Easter, Christodoulides told National Guard soldiers and officers that the government was taking concrete steps to strengthen the Republic’s deterrent capability and upgrade the force.
He said those steps included improving the employment terms of contract soldiers as part of a broader effort to turn the National Guard into a professional force. They also included securing participation for National Guard personnel in training programmes in the United States.
Christodoulides also said Cyprus was making use of the European Union’s SAFE financial instrument, under which the Republic was allocated 1.2 billion euros, to strengthen equipment and meet the National Guard’s needs.
He said the government was also investing in major upgrades at the Andreas Papandreou air base in Paphos and the Evangelos Florakis naval base.
Referring to cooperation with Cyprus’s defence industry, Christodoulides said the government wanted not only to import defence equipment but also to reach the goal of exporting to third countries, describing that as fully achievable.
He also said he had seen the work being carried out by the National Guard’s technical department and that the government wanted, through cooperation between that department and the private sector, to help meet that goal.
Christodoulides said the cabinet had decided that, in purchases of equipment from third countries, the aim was for Cypriot companies to have a 15% share.
He said strengthening and upgrading the National Guard remained a top priority not only because Cyprus remained under Turkish occupation and reunification was the overriding goal, but also because of the country’s location in a region of particular geostrategic importance.
He added that Cyprus, as a European Union member state, had a strategic goal of further strengthening and upgrading the National Guard, and said more still had to be done.
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