Roundup: Cyprus to sign controversial military agreement with Russia

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades flew to Moscow on Tuesday for an official visit during which he will sign a controversial defense cooperation agreement extending military facilities to Russia on the eastern Mediterranean island.

Anastasiades, trying to play down the agreement, has said that it will renew an old one which covered Russia's servicing of military equipment purchased by Cyprus.

However, Cypriot government officials have acknowledged that it will extent the scope of the defense cooperation by offering facilities to Russia, such as refueling and maintenance for its aircraft at an air base in the western part of the island and also port facilities for Russian ships.

Russia is the main supplier of arms to the small Cypriot National Guard.

These include attack helicopters and an anti-aircraft missile system.

Russia's ambassador to Cyprus, Stanislav Osadchiy, has said that Russia asked for additional military facilities on the island, including storage space at the southern port of Limassol.

Britain has voiced hardly veiled objections to Cyprus offering military facilities to Russia next to a British air base near Limassol, which is one of the most important airbases and electronic surveillance sites supporting NATO operation.

Britain's High Commissioner in Cyprus, Ric Todd, has said in a newspaper interview that offering military facilities to Moscow runs contrary to the European Union policies on Russia.

The Cypriot government retorted that these facilities would be no different to facilities extended to France, Germany and Britain itself "perhaps in abundance".

An official statement in Nicosia said that Anastasiades and Russian President Vladimir Putin will sign agreements on political, economic, scientific, cultural and agricultural cooperation.

It said the discussions between the two presidents will focus on the Cyprus issue, relations between Cyprus and Russia and ways to further enhance them, EU-Russia relations, the situation in the Ukraine and regional developments in Eastern Mediterranean.

Accompanying president Anastasiades on his three-day Russian visit starting on Wednesday is Commerce and Tourism Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis, who said he will focus on working towards more tourism from Russia.

Russian visitors to Cyprus topped 800,000 last year, but authorities in Cyprus fear that the devaluation of the ruble and dropping oil prices will lead to a 25 percent drop this year.

Cyprus counts on tourism to help it return to economic growth this year, after 14 consecutive quarters of recession.

Cyprus was rescued from bankruptcy by the Eurogroup and the International Monetary Fund in a 10-billion-euro (about 11.4 billion U.S. dollars) bailout in March, 2013, after being shut out of international markets since mid-2011. Endit