Cyprus has long been a focal point of international interest with major powers maintaining a military presence on the island. The United Kingdom, the United States, Greece and Turkey all have forces stationed there, while Germany and other allied nations use Cyprus as a strategic base for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon mission. The European Union also recognizes Cyprus’s importance, frequently hosting security and defense forums and joint military exercises there.

In recent weeks, Cyprus has started extensive preparations to modernize its military facilities to better support international partners.

Why Cyprus?

At the Cyprus Forum Brussels 2025, titled “EU Security and Defense: The Role of Cyprus,” experts discussed several critical factors:

• Strategic location: Cyprus serves as a crucial vantage point for monitoring regional threats and crises.
• Logistical hub: The island provides essential infrastructure for EU and international humanitarian and security operations.
• Military contributions: Cyprus plays a key role in Common Security and Defense Policy missions, including naval operations.
• Energy security: The island helps safeguard natural gas reserves potentially vital to Europe’s future energy supply.

The panelists also highlighted Cyprus’s close proximity and relations to Israel, which has often been the center point of regional crises.

Cyprus is geographically at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It plays a key role in securing maritime trade, and it provides a safe haven for refugees and a staging ground for military operations. Many indications point to its main attraction as a military staging ground is its close proximity to Jerusalem.

Bridge to the Holy City

In recent years, the Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has said that Cyprus is an “EU member state in a region of particular geostrategic importance,” of “particular geostrategic significance for the EU and others” and that “foreigners see our geographic position as our key advantage.”

I spoke to international lawyer and general secretary of the recently founded United Republican Party of Cyprus, Nicolaos Komnenos, about Cyprus’s significance. In regards to Christodoulides’s comments, Komnenos explained:

Unfortunately, the only significant place in the area is Jerusalem. This is the holy place. And I’m not an expert in religion, but definitely it attracts attention of generations. The Crusaders, they didn’t come to UK. The Crusaders came to Jerusalem. I don’t know exactly what our president meant, but my belief is that the importance of Cyprus is because of close proximity to Jerusalem and to the Middle East.

You can watch the full Trumpet World interview below.

World powers and religions have fought for centuries over this city, and Cyprus has often been right in the middle of it.

Concerning Cyprus’s historic significance, our late Cyprus correspondent Dr. James Leigh wrote in the February 2003 Trumpet:

In 168 b.c. Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria was about to mount a third military campaign into Egypt when a Roman fleet from Cyprus cut him off and ordered him to withdraw. Defeated and dejected, he returned to Judea.

Moving forward to the Crusades, history records that more than one crusade was launched from Cyprus into the Middle East. In a.d. 1171, for example, the self-declared supreme ruler of Islam, Saladin, mounted a jihad to recover Jerusalem from the European Christian infidels. In a.d. 1187, he crushed the European military, and after a two-week siege, Jerusalem fell to the Muslims. This sent shock waves through Christendom. The European powers mounted the Third Crusade and used Cyprus as a supply bridge to support their military campaigns in Israel against Islam.

We see similar developments today.

On Dec. 23, 2024, President Christodoulides appointed a special representative for religious freedom in the Middle East and noted that this would assist the EU’s effort to support religious groups in the region. Komnenos commented: “This is not the first surprise; it is second surprise. The first surprise came early in 2024 when the Vatican opened an embassy in Cyprus.”

Prepared for Future Conflict

In recent decades Cyprus has again been prepared to play a key role in future conflicts. Komnenos explained:

We point attention to the fact that in 1957, Dr. [Henry] Kissinger was very clear about the need of Cyprus as a staging ground for upcoming nuclear or thermonuclear war. … So what is going on now is the implementation of the worst scenario laid out by Dr. Kissinger in 1957 in his very famous book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. And this book is recognized as one of the most influential books. … It is on the record by the Parliament in the United Kingdom that the Akrotiri military base is equipped for accommodating nuclear warheads. … Now the United States is coming to Cyprus to upgrade their facilities. We have a huge Turkish Army contingent based in the north of Cyprus. We are in the dark. We don’t know what these troops are doing, and we are protesting against it.

In 2020, the U.S. lifted a decade-long arms embargo against Cyprus, opening the way for the island’s increased militarization with Western weaponry. In his lasts days in the White House, President Joe Biden issued a memorandum to grant Cyprus the ability to buy arms from the U.S. government. Even though Cyprus is not a part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is increasingly pulled into the Western military sphere.

There is no doubt about Cyprus’s strategic significance. The question is who will win the fight over Cyprus? Unbeknown to the world, the fight has already been settled.

The Winner

When Cyprus faced serious economic trouble in 2013, “Germany blocked Russia from getting involved and stepped in to offer a bailout package—with tough conditions,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote. “Cyprus accepted. Thus, the EU became the de facto ruler of Cyprus. … And since Germany is Europe’s largest economy and put up the largest share of the money, Germany became the real power in Cyprus.”

Komnenos noted that this so-called bailout of Cyprus cost citizens billions in savings and gave Europe “leverage over Cyprus.” Since then, Germany’s power has grown.

“According to provisional figures for 2023, German exports to Cyprus were worth €797.7 million [us$833.5 million], while imports from Cyprus to Germany totaled €125.7 million,” the German Foreign Ministry noted. “Within the EU, Cyprus is one of the most important shipping centers and has the second-largest open register of ships; it also has the world’s ninth-largest fleet by tonnage. In the field of ship management, German or German-led companies have a market share of around 50 percent. Since Limassol port was privatized in 2016, its container terminal has been managed by a German company (Eurogate)” (“Germany and Cyprus: Bilateral Relations,” Sept. 25, 2024).

Where It Will Lead

For centuries, Cyprus has drawn the attention of world powers and has been at the heart of major conflicts. Centuries later, the world still doesn’t have peace, and Cyprus is once again being fortified in the midst of a larger conflict in the Middle East.

In “Why Germany Conquered Cyprus,” Mr. Flurry wrote:

Set in the midst of the Mediterranean Sea, near the heart of the world, is strategic Cyprus. Look at a map, and you can see it is a stepping-stone between Europe and the Middle East. It is near Jerusalem, it is near Rome, and it is near Berlin. Understand its proximity to these important cities and to strategic areas, and you begin to understand why Cyprus has played such a crucial role in history.

The Bible warns that unless something dramatic changes, our world will once again be engulfed in conflict and Cyprus will once again be at the heart of it. Mr. Flurry warned in a related Key of David program on March 29, 2013:

Cyprus is going to be, we believe, a very significant, or play a very significant role in the near future and is really going to be probably the little island from which World War iii will be triggered. Now that is according to Bible prophecies. That might seem strange, but then on the other hand, there have been several crusades launched from the little island of Cyprus. And why is this little island so important to Germany, a nation who has started two world wars and now have Cyprus in absolute bondage to their country? How did that happen after Germany was so completely destroyed after World War ii? How have they regained such power in Europe today?

To learn more about this crucial subject, read Mr. Flurry’s article “Why Germany Conquered Cyprus.”