October 9, 2001

Cyprus and Greece have decided not to go ahead with the annual joint military exercise code-named "Nikiforos-Toxotis" originally scheduled to take place this month. The two exercises will now take place seperately.

The first, "Nikiforos" exercise, carried out by the National Guard will take place as scheduled, October 16-21, while the second, "Toxotis", carried out by Greece's airforce and navy, will take place at a later stage. The date for "Toxotis" will be decided after consultations between the two governments.

Cyprus Defense Minister, Socratis Hasikos, said that following consultations with his Greek counterpart Akis Tsohatzopoulos the exrcise "Toxotis" will be rescheduled for a later date.

He explained that the postponement of this exercise, "has been made necessary by the start of the military operations against international terrorism and commitments undertaken by Greece and Cyprus to provide facilities to the countries involved in these operations."

The Cypriot minister said he was not in a position to fix a date for "Toxotis" because "this depends on the outcome of the operations in Afghanistan".

* * * * *

Back