NICOSIA: India will step up its defense ties with Cyprus through collaboration between the two countries\u2019 respective defense industries, the Indian prime minister said Monday.
\nPrime Minister Narendra Modi didn\u2019t offer details, but he said talks would begin on boosting bilateral maritime and cybersecurity cooperation.
\nHe said after talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides that the two countries would also set up an information exchange mechanism geared toward combatting the threat of terrorism.
\nModi\u2019s two-day visit to Cyprus, ahead of his trip to Canada for the G7 summit, is the first by an Indian prime minister in more than two decades.
\nIn a joint declaration, the two countries also pledged to expand maritime cooperation through more frequent Indian navy calls to Cypriot ports and looking at enhancing joint maritime training and search and rescue operations.
\nModi underscored the role of the envisioned India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as a means to usher peace and prosperity in the Middle East.
\nCyprus figures to act as the linchpin between India, the Middle East and Europe in the trade, energy and digital connectivity corridor, given the island nation\u2019s geographical location as the nearest European Union country to the Middle East and India.
\nChristodoulides said Cyprus was India\u2019s \u201cgateway into Europe\u201d as a base for Indian businesses. He pledged to help implement initiatives such as IMEC that will connect India through specific infrastructure works with the Gulf, the Mediterranean and the European continent.
\nThe Cypriot president said India-EU ties and an upgraded free trade agreement would be among his country\u2019s top priorities when Cyprus assumes the 27-member bloc\u2019s rotating presidency in the first half of 2026.
\nThe Indian prime minister hailed the visit as a harbinger of a new era of India-Cyprus relations built on shared values and deep historic ties that \u201chave been tested time and again.\u201d
\nFormer British colonies Cyprus and India were among members of the Non-Aligned Movement, a collection of nations which opted out of the Cold War choice of allegiance to either the West or the Communist bloc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NICOSIA: India will step up its defense ties with Cyprus through collaboration between the two countries\u2019 respective defense industries, the Indian prime minister said Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn\u2019t offer details, but he said talks would begin on boosting bilateral maritime and cybersecurity cooperation. He said after talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":82539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82543,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82526\/revisions\/82543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}