CyBC shot down by friendly fire.

DID HE really say that?

Listeners had trouble believing what their ears were telling them on Sunday, as state broadcaster CyBC reported that the Paphos air base could host “a thousand” Greek fighter jets.

And the report appeared to come from the most impeccable of sources, visiting Greek Defence Minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos.

CyBC quoted him as saying during a joint press conference with his Cypriot counterpart Socrates Hasikos that “a thousand” fighter jets could land at the Andreas Papandreou air base, which he and Hasikos had just visited.

Greece does not have 1,000 fighters and the still incomplete base has nowhere near the capacity for so many even if it did.

The explanation for the apparent slip is simple. What Tsohatzopoulos actually said was that filia (meaning “friendly” in Greek) fighter jets could land at the base. The word filia is but a slip of the tongue away from the Greek for a thousand: chilia.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.