• dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Honest questions, because I don’t know much about Cyprus. Do they normally allow Israel to do military exercises from Cyprus? Are Cypriots known to be aligned with Israel?

    If they don’t normally do stuff that would make a country think they would help out Israel militarily, then yeah, this is surprising. If they do have regular interactions with the IDF or are politically close to Israel, then I can see why someone would want to warn Cyprus to stay out of it.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      5 months ago

      From what I’ve read (I’ve done a few hours of reading on this specific topic at this point[damn you curiosity]). No. They’ve done all of 2 things with Israel in basically a decade. 2 exercises in a decade isn’t really enough to say that there’s any meaningful relationship other than “we’re not enemies”.

      I could be wrong… But I do not get that intent at all from Cyprus, which aligns with their “surprise” at being yelled at from some other country about a country they barely interact with from a military perspective.

      I’m ex-military and have personally participated in more exercises with countries the USA was less friendly with politically.

    • Billy@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      5 months ago

      Adding to the other comment, Cyprus has also welcomed tens of thousands of Lebanese refugees over the years since the 80s, and lobbied the EU to financially assist Lebanon.