Security News > 2021 > June > EU, Mideast Nations Look to Train at Cyprus Security Center
Three European Union member nations and three Middle Eastern countries are looking to train personnel in border, customs, maritime and cybersecurity techniques at a cutting-edge U.S.-funded facility in Cyprus that is expected to be ready early next year, the Cypriot foreign minister said Thursday.
The Cyprus Center for Land, Open-Seas, and Port Security is scheduled to start operating on Jan. 16, 2022, Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides said after inspecting the under-construction facility with U.S. Ambassador Judith Garber.
Christodoulides said Cyprus was selected for the center because the Mediterranean island nation is located on the southeastern end of the EU and because it enjoys good relations with the nations in the Mideast.
Cypriot government spokesman Kyriakos Koushos said U.S. President Joe Biden considers Cyprus a "Significant partner" in bolstering regional security in the east Mediterranean and has pledged to further strengthen U.S.-Cyprus relations.
Cyprus and the United States forged closer security links in recent years, culminating in the 2019 congressional approval of the Eastern Mediterranean Energy and Security Partnership Act, which underscored U.S. support for an energy-based partnership between Greece, Cyprus and Israel.
Under the act, the U.S. is providing ethnically divided Cyprus with funding for military training and has partially lifted an arms embargo that was enacted 33 years ago to prevent a potential arms race from harming peace talks with the country's breakaway Turkish Cypriots.