NEW DELHI: Cyprus has shown a keen desire to procure BrahMoS cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles from India. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides’ recent visit to New Delhi has set the stage for this potential acquisition. However, the prospect of Cyprus acquiring BrahMos missiles has already triggered alarm bells within Türkiye’s strategic and security circles.Besides BrahMoS, Cyprus is also interested in procuring India’s kamikaze drones like Nagastra-1 and Skystriker. If these defence deals are finalised, the pacts will mark a major strategic setback for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, given Ankara’s decades-long occupation of northern Cyprus. If the deals are inked, it will also mark the first deployment of Indian-made weapons systems in the Eastern Mediterranean region.Türkiye’s move to secretly dispatch hundreds of drones to Pakistan during the peak of the May 2025 Indo-Pak conflict and its repeated controversial remarks on Kashmir on different platforms had already created a rift between New Delhi and Ankara.Defence analysts in Ankara fear that deploying these supersonic missiles or kamikaze drones in the Mediterranean could fundamentally shift the regional military balance and threaten Turkiye’s security. Countries around the world had already witnessed how India used BrahMos missiles to destroy Pakistan’s key military bases during the May conflict. Some reports claim that the possible BrahMos purchase to Cyprus would be made under a defence package of about euro 1.2 billion allocated to the Greek Cypriot administration under the European Union’s SAFE program.During Christodoulides’ visit, PM Modi and the President welcomed the conclusion of the roadmap for Bilateral Defence Cooperation (2026–2031) between the defence ministries. They underscored the potential for significant cooperation in the defence sector and also welcomed the signing of the technical arrangement for the establishment of official coordination and cooperation on Search and Rescue (SAR) matters.“These will provide an institutional framework for promoting defence industrial cooperation and technology partnership, building on the momentum of the India-EU Defence and Security Partnership signed on Jan 27, 2026, as well as facilitate exchanges, training and capacity building.
