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Cyprus Holds Military Drill with France, Italy and Greece to Bolster Security in East Mediterranean

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides shake hands with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis outside the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, September 4, 2023. (Reuters)
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides shake hands with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis outside the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, September 4, 2023. (Reuters)
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Cyprus Holds Military Drill with France, Italy and Greece to Bolster Security in East Mediterranean

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides shake hands with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis outside the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, September 4, 2023. (Reuters)
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides shake hands with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis outside the Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Cyprus, September 4, 2023. (Reuters)

The Cypriot president said Thursday that joint military maneuvers with three other European Union member states underway in the Eastern Mediterranean underscore the bloc's readiness to ensure security and stability in the region.

President Nikos Christodoulides said the drill with France, Italy and Greece is of “particular geostrategic significance” for the 27-member bloc and others, including the United States.

Christodoulides said his government is putting a “special emphasis” on upgrading the island’s military installations in order to take full advantage of its geographical location at the southeasternmost corner of Europe and close to the Middle East and Africa.

He spoke ahead of a visit to the French frigate Chevalier Paul, which is taking part in the drill, and stressed that the show of strength is not turned against any other country — a veiled allusion to Türkiye, with which Cyprus shares a violent past, including a 1974 Turkish invasion brought on by a coup aimed at forming a union with Greece.

Since then, the island has been divided along ethnic lines, with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north separated from the Greek Cypriot south where the internationally recognized government is seated.

NATO-member Türkiye does not recognize Cyprus as a state, and claims much of the island’s offshore exclusive economic zone where several significant natural gas deposits have been discovered.

The five-day drill, which kicked off on Monday and is code-named EUNOMIA 4-2023, involves naval and air forces, including French Rafale jet fighters and Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft, according to a Cyprus Defense Ministry statement.

The exercise also includes for the first time this year civilian evacuation drills in the event of a regional emergency.

Britain used Cyprus as a waypoint to evacuate hundreds of its citizens from Sudan when fighting erupted there between Sudanese military and a rival, paramilitary force in mid-April. As chaos and violence engulfed the African country, many foreign countries rushed to evacuate their citizens from Sudan through complex airlifts and land

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US Sanctions Beijing-based Cyber Group for Alleged Hacking Role

(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
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US Sanctions Beijing-based Cyber Group for Alleged Hacking Role

(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

The US Treasury on Friday sanctioned a Beijing-based cybersecurity company for its alleged role in multiple hacking incidents targeting critical US infrastructure.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control hit Integrity Technology Group, Inc. with sanctions Friday morning, for conducting multiple hacks against US victims, including incidents attributed to Flax Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored campaign that targets US critical infrastructure.

The sanctions come a few days after Treasury reported that Chinese hackers remotely accessed several US Treasury Department workstations and unclassified documents in a major cybersecurity incident.

The Treasury Department said it learned of the problem on Dec. 8, when a third-party software service provider, BeyondTrust, flagged that hackers had stolen a key “used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support” to workers.

Friday's sanctions do not appear to be related to the Dec. 8 Treasury hack.
According to The Associated Press, Treasury Acting Under Secretary Bradley Smith said the US will disrupt cyber threats "as we continue working collaboratively to harden public and private sector cyber defenses.”

The sanctions block access to US property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans.
US officials are continuing to grapple with the fallout of a massive Chinese cyberespionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans.