CI/KR RESPONSE FOR S/CT

C O N F I D E N T I A L NICOSIA 000179

SIPDIS

STATE FOR S/CT (S. CLARK) AND EUR/SE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/12/2018
TAGS: ASEC PTER PGOV EFIN ENRG KCIP CY
SUBJECT: CI/KR RESPONSE FOR S/CT

REF: SECSTATE 15113

Classified By: Ambassador Frank C. Urbancic for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d)


1. (U) This telegram contains Embassy Nicosia's assessment
of critical infrastructure and key resources on Cyprus which,
if destroyed, disrupted, or exploited, might have an
immediate and deleterious effect on the United States.
Embassy responses are keyed to Reftel.


2. (SBU) Reftel Para 13: The Embassy does not believe that
the loss of Cyprus-owned physical infrastructure, nor the
interruption of key resource exports from the island, would
immediately affect the security, national economic security,
and/or public health or safety of the United States. A
Connecticut-sized Mediterranean island some 5000 miles from
the East Coast of the United States, Cyprus simply is too
small, too distant, and too lacking in natural resources to
affect U.S. interests in that fashion. We are unaware of any
direct physical linkages, such as pipelines or undersea
telephone cables, between Cyprus and the United States, for
example. Similarly, there are no sole or predominantly
Cyprus-sourced minerals or chemicals on which U.S. industry
is dependent.


3. (C) Reftel Para 10: Under the terms of the 1960
independence treaties, Great Britain was allowed to retain
two "Sovereign Base Areas" (SBAs) and several isolated sites
scattered throughout Cyprus, such as the RAF radar dome on
Mt. Olympus, the island's highest point, and various antenna
arrays in Ayios Nikolaos, near Famagusta. Via varied formal
agreements and informal arrangements, the United States
enjoys some access to and benefits from these UK facilities.
Unlike the Cyprus-owned infrastructure noted above, the
damage or complete loss of SBA-housed facilities would pose a
threat to our national security interests in the eastern
Mediterranean.


4. (SBU) Embassy staff regularly raise concerns regarding
vulnerabilities to local infrastructure with Cypriot
interlocutors and have offered ideas, funding, and training
to meet them. Other Mission elements have engaged Cypriot
counterparts in hopes of improving their humanitarian relief
and crisis response operations.
Urbancic