The United States navy’s amphibious landing dock ship the USS Oak Hill returned to Limassol on Thursday evening.
The ship’s arrival in Limassol marks its second stop on the island in six weeks, with the return to Cyprus having been organised to collect marines from the US’ 24th marine expeditionary unit who have been training alongside Cyprus’ National Guard since September.
The ship had previously arrived in Cyprus to conduct scheduled maintenance, with the ship’s commanding officer Jason Nowell saying at the time that the marines would conduct “routine bilateral training exercises” with Cyprus’ National Guard both in Paphos and Larnaca.
The Defence Visual Information Distribution Service said these exercises are “part of [the marines’] scheduled deployment”.
The USS Oak Hill had in August taken part in joint exercises with the USS Wasp and the Turkish navy’s amphibious assault ship the TCG Anadolu, and fellow Turkish navy ship the TCG Gokova in August.
The USS Wasp’s official social media page at the time had said the exercises had taken place “in a demonstration of enduring cooperation and mutual commitment to maritime security”.
After those exercises had taken place, the USS Wasp docked in the Turkish Aegean city of Izmir, but this was met with controversy after two sailors from the ship were attacked by 15 people while walking down the city’s central Cyprus Martyrs Street.
The USS Wasp’s presence in Cyprus had also generated controversy on the island, with Akel accusing the Cypriot government of dragging Cyprus into the middle of extremely heightened tensions by consenting to the “continuing concentration of foreign military forces on our island”.
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar charged that “South Cyprus has become a military stopover point for countries which show at every opportunity they are party to the crisis and that they are complicit in the crimes against humanity being committed, and it has even started to use its civilian ports for military purposes.”
Meanwhile, Turkey’s defence ministry issued a warning to the Republic of Cyprus over military activities on the island.
“The recent increase in activity on the island of Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot Administration’s ongoing activities are being meticulously monitored,” they said,
Despite this, Cyprus’ Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas was resolute in his defence of the ship’s docking in Cyprus, speaking of his “sadness” at “some publications and also some political parties” which criticised the government’s handling of the situation.
“There is nothing reprehensible, there is no fault, we are a recognised, democratic, modern state inside the international community, and we have every right, the inalienable right, to perform exercises for the purpose of being ready if and when issues arise,” he said.
