Cyprus will upgrade key air and naval bases with US and EU-backed funding to boost its role as a humanitarian hub for Middle East evacuations, according to officials.
Cyprus is upgrading two key military installations with US funding to reinforce its role as a humanitarian safe haven for evacuees from conflicts in the Middle East, officials said.
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The Andreas Papandreou Air Base in Paphos will be expanded to include a new parking apron capable of accommodating dozens of heavy-lift military transport aircraft, allowing faster refuelling and maintenance during large-scale humanitarian operations.
The Evangelos Florakis naval base at Mari, 229 kilometres from Lebanon's coast, will receive a new US European Command-funded heliport capable of accommodating large Chinook transport helicopters to airlift evacuees from conflict zones.
The US has provided €500,000 for a development plan to determine the overall cost of the air base expansion, Lt Col Paris Samoutis, a Cyprus National Guard spokesperson, told the Associated Press. Exact funding for both projects has not been released as cost assessments continue.
Work is expected to start in 2027, according to Cyprus Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas. The air base upgrades could cost around €14 million, while the naval base project may exceed €200 million, with Cyprus seeking additional EU funding for the latter.
Cyprus has carved out a strategic role as the closest EU member state to crisis zones in the Middle East, acting as a transit point for humanitarian evacuations and aid shipments.
In 2006, the island facilitated the evacuation of around 30,000 people from Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war. In April 2023, it served as a transit point for evacuating third-country nationals from Sudan. In 2024, it deployed the Amalthea maritime corridor to ship thousands of tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza, initially directly and later through Israel's Ashdod port.
In June 2025, when the US and Israel struck Iran's nuclear facilities, Cyprus again acted as a waystation for people leaving Israel and for Israelis stranded abroad to return home.
The US deployed a Marine contingent with V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to Paphos Air Base in 2024 to assist with potential evacuations from Lebanon.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides has made clear that the country's military installations will be restricted to humanitarian operations and will not be used for offensive military action.
Bilateral military cooperation between EU member Cyprus and the US has grown in recent years. In January 2025, experts from the 435th Contingency Response Group, based at Germany's Ramstein, conducted an infrastructure assessment at Andreas Papandreou Air Base.
"Events in Sudan, Lebanon, Israel and Gaza in 2023 and 2024 demonstrated the criticality of the Republic of Cyprus as a security partner in the eastern Mediterranean," said US Army Col Kenneth Evans, senior defence attache at the US Embassy in Nicosia, in January 2025.
The upgrades are part of a broader programme to enhance both bases' capacity to support large-scale humanitarian responses.
Cyprus also sought funding through the EU's SAFE programme, which offers €1.18 billion to improve defence readiness and infrastructure across EU member states, repayable over 45 years.