NICOSIA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- There has never been a United States "secret base" in Cyprus, the country's Foreign Minister said on Tuesday, dismissing a claim to this effect by a U.S. State Department official.
Nicos Christodoulides told a closed session of a parliamentary committee that the claim was inaccurate and out of context.
The claim had been made in a report from the State Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) which was revealed by ABC news at the start of October.
It said that over nearly four years the U.S. State Department spent some 70 million U.S. dollars on a base that was "quickly set up and served little clear purpose before its quiet closing last year".
It said that five helicopters were stationed in the base, but it did not say where it was. Speculative reports said it was located within the Akrotiri British Sovereign Base, one of the most important NATO bases worldwide.
"There has never been an American helicopter base on the soil of the Akrotiri Base...I have been informed about the stationing of helicopters which was part of a wider plan by the Americans all over the world, during that period, for the safe evacuation of American diplomats", Christodoulides said.
The helicopters were stationed at Akrotiri from September 2013 until August 2017, according to the OIG document. The arrangement was made after an attack in 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, in which the American ambassador was killed.
Christodoulides said the helicopters were stationed there for a specific purpose related to humanitarian nature operations.
"We have turned Andreas Papandreou air base (near Paphos, in the west of Cyprus), as well as our ports into points of reference for use by third countries which wish to mount exclusively humanitarian nature operation", Christodoulides said.
He added that facilities were given in 672 occasions to third countries in 2017, within the context of humanitarian cooperation.
"These point to the substantive role of Cyprus as a factor of security and stability in the eastern Mediterranean", Christodoulides said.
