VZCZCXYZ0007
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHNC #0179 0710942
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 120942Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY NICOSIA
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 9703

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