AhlulBayt News Agency: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has lashed out at Cyprus for becoming an “operation center” for Israel’s bloody onslaught on Gaza, warning the island country against involving itself with the regime’s regional adventures.
“We frequently see in intelligence reports that certain countries use the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus as a base, particularly for offensives in Gaza,” Fidan told Turkey’s HaberTurk television news channel in an exclusive interview broadcast on Monday.
“When you become a part of the ongoing wars in the Middle East, this fire will come and find you too.”
“And as we share the same geography, it will then come and hit us too. Our advice to them is to stay away from the conflict.”
Turkey doesn’t recognize the EU-member Republic of Cyprus. The eastern Mediterranean island has been ethnically divided between Turkish and Greek Cypriots since a Greek military coup and Turkey’s subsequent military intervention in 1974.
The breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only recognized by Ankara.
Turkey has criticized the Greek Cypriot administration for allowing two British bases on the island to be used for US arms shipments to Israel.
Fidan described the use of the bases as logistics bases for humanitarian aid as “an activity that conceals their status as a military base.”
The Turkish foreign minister’s warning came less than a week after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, warned Cyprus against opening its airports and bases to Israel in the event of a new war on Lebanon.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” Nasrallah stated on June 19.
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“We frequently see in intelligence reports that certain countries use the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus as a base, particularly for offensives in Gaza,” Fidan told Turkey’s HaberTurk television news channel in an exclusive interview broadcast on Monday.
“When you become a part of the ongoing wars in the Middle East, this fire will come and find you too.”
“And as we share the same geography, it will then come and hit us too. Our advice to them is to stay away from the conflict.”
Turkey doesn’t recognize the EU-member Republic of Cyprus. The eastern Mediterranean island has been ethnically divided between Turkish and Greek Cypriots since a Greek military coup and Turkey’s subsequent military intervention in 1974.
The breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only recognized by Ankara.
Turkey has criticized the Greek Cypriot administration for allowing two British bases on the island to be used for US arms shipments to Israel.
Fidan described the use of the bases as logistics bases for humanitarian aid as “an activity that conceals their status as a military base.”
The Turkish foreign minister’s warning came less than a week after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, warned Cyprus against opening its airports and bases to Israel in the event of a new war on Lebanon.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon would mean that the Cypriot government is part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” Nasrallah stated on June 19.
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