THE government has got its own back on parliament by securing on loan from Greece the helicopters that deputies would not approve funding for.
Defence Minister Socratis Hasikos yesterday proudly announced that two Bell helicopters had arrived on the island on Sunday night, courtesy of Athens.
Main opposition party AKEL reacted by insisting that the helicopters loaned out by Greece were virtual antiques, far inferior to the models the House of Representatives had rejected as inadequate for the army’s needs. Hasikos denied this.
“The Greeks removed two helicopters from their own forces and sent them to us with their crews,” Hasikos said yesterday, noting that Cyprus would be allowed to keep the helicopters for as long as the National Guard needed them.
Hasikos turned to Greece for help last month after parliament refused to rubber-stamp funding for the purchase of four US-made Bell helicopters. “The government could not sit there with its hands tied just because parliament would not approve the necessary sums,” he said.
The Minister said Cyprus needed the helicopters both to up her search and rescue capabilities and in order to live up to promises made to the European Defence Force. “The Cyprus Republic has obligations towards the European army. we said we would undertake search and rescue in the area. We will now be in position to cover search and rescue in whole the whole Nicosia Flight Information Zone (FIR).”
AKEL did not share in the Minister’s satisfaction.
While being careful to express thanks to Athens for the two helicopters, the opposition party’s defence expert, Doros Christodoulides, suggested the donated military hardware might be rather old stock. “I would need to know details concerning the type of helicopter. If they are UH-1Hs then they are the great-great grandfather of the Bell 412s the army tried to get; Greece got the UH-1Hs in the 1960s or 70s,” Christodoulides said. “The Bell 412s were not approved by the House because they were considered unsuitable,” he added.
“As far as I know, Greece does not even use UH-1Hs for search and rescue,” he said.
Christodoulides also claimed the bringing in of the helicopters was nothing but a government attempt to win votes ahead of the May parliamentary elections.
Hasikos did not say exactly what model of helicopter was being brought in from Greece, describing them only as an “earlier version” of the Bells the government had wanted to buy.
But the Minister insisted the gifts from Greece were up to the job: “These helicopters are the basic helicopter of the Greek army; Greece has 115 of them and the US has them too. I do not want to question the capabilities or reliability of this helicopter.”
But Hasikos also admitted the donated helicopters did not cover the National Guard’s needs “one hundred per cent” and said the government would soon be seeking tenders for the supply of more army helicopters.
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.
