President Nikos Christodoulides on Thursday said it is \u201cup to Turkey\u201d to meet the conditions set out om the European Union\u2019s Security Action for Europe (Safe) defence<\/strong> procurement programme.<\/p>\n Speaking ahead of the day\u2019s European Political Community summit in Copenhagen, he told journalists that during his earlier meeting with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, he had discussed \u201cthe participation of Nato member states\u201d in the Safe mechanism.<\/p>\n \u201cI reiterated the common position of the European Union that Nato member states which violate the sovereignty [and] territorial integrity of [EU] member states cannot in any way benefit from this tool,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMore specifically, as regards Turkey, it is up to Turkey, if it wants to participate in this very important instrument. The condition is that there be positive specific developments on the Cyprus issue, and it is up to Turkey to take these steps<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, he said that in any future cooperation between the EU and Nato, there must be \u201cno restrictions for any of the 27 member states of the European Union\u201d.<\/p>\n Speaking more broadly about European defence, he said that \u201cit is important as a European Union that we have moved beyond discussions and have moved forwards with specific actions\u201d.<\/p>\n To this end, he said further strengthening of Europe\u2019s defence capabilities will be a priority when Cyprus undertakes the Council of the EU\u2019s rotating presidency<\/strong> in the first half of next year.<\/p>\n He then returned his attention to Cyprus\u2019 own defence capabilities, pointing out that the country secured over \u20ac1 billion\u00a0of funding for military hardware through the Safe programme.<\/p>\n Additionally, he made reference to the fact that Cyprus was authorised by the United States to\u00a0<\/strong>buy military hardware<\/strong>\u00a0directly from the country\u2019s government<\/strong>, before expressing his wish to \u201cstrengthen the very good, promising Cypriot defence industry\u201d.<\/p>\n Cyprus\u2019 domestic defence industry, he said, \u201chas enormous prospects for cooperation both with European Union member states and with countries in the region\u201d.<\/p>\n He added that for this reason, the government has now decided that \u201cthe Republic of Cyprus\u2019 purchase of armament programmes must also require the participation of Cypriot defence industries at a rate of at least 15 per cent\u201d.<\/p>\n Later, he spoke of how the EU needs to have a \u201c360-degree perspective\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, the issues of Ukraine are particularly important, but at the same time, as the European Union, in matters of defence and security in particular, we should be protagonists in other regions as well.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n He said that this must entail the planned upgrades to both the Andreas Papandreou airbase in Paphos and the Evangelos Florakis naval base in Mari, with Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas having earlier said that the\u00a0upgrades at Mari may cost in excess of \u20ac200 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Upgrades to the airbase, he said, would only cost between \u20ac10m and \u20ac14m, \u201cdepending on the outcome of the recommendations and proposals which will be made\u201d.<\/p>\n Christodoulides\u2019 insistence to Rutte that Turkey meet conditions to be allowed access to the Safe programme comes after Greek newspaper Kathimerini<\/em> had reported that Rutte had \u201c<\/strong>signalled support<\/strong>\u201d for Turkish participation in the programme<\/strong>\u00a0during a meeting with EU ambassadors.<\/p>\n He had reportedly argued that \u201cengagement\u201d between the EU and Turkey \u201cis essential for stronger Nato cooperation\u201d.<\/p>\n The Safe programme is open to all 27 EU member states, as well as the four European Economic Area States \u2013 Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland \u2013 and Ukraine, as well as six other countries which have signed common defence agreements with the EU \u2013 Albania, Japan, Moldova, North Macedonia, South Korea and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n Turkey would be eligible to sign an agreement similar to that of the UK with the EU<\/strong>\u00a0and gain access to the Safe programme, but defence agreements require unanimity among EU member states.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Nikos Christodoulides on Thursday said it is \u201cup to Turkey\u201d to meet the conditions set out om the European Union\u2019s Security Action for Europe (Safe) defence procurement programme. Speaking ahead of the day\u2019s European Political Community summit in Copenhagen, he told journalists that during his earlier meeting with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, he had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[268,1358,1360,1359,714,1362,1361,1357],"class_list":{"0":"post-4838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cyprus-news","8":"tag-christodoulides","9":"tag-conditions","10":"tag-eus","11":"tag-join","12":"tag-meet","13":"tag-programme","14":"tag-safe","15":"tag-turkey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}