Cyprus: An Island Crawling With Spies
May 24, 1999 - 0:0
NICOSIA Spy mania is back in the news big time in Cyprus this week, with a local newspaper publishing the names of alleged British MI6 agents based here, and a Maronite Christian getting a six year jail sentence for spying for the Turkish army. George Josephides, a Maronite from the Turkish-occupied area of Cyprus was jailed for six years Friday for spying against the Nicosia government on behalf of Turkey. He was arrested while trying to cross into the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus at the official Nicosia checkpoint with a number of classified documents in his possession detailing the whereabouts of Cyprus national guard camps and radio transmitters.
Cyprus has a longstanding reputation, lingering from the Cold War spying bonanza, as the region's espionage center for the Middle East and Balkans. Most Cypriot politicians seem to believe still that the island is crawling with spooks trying to winkle out military secrets. But some intelligence experts suggest the real problem is that the government has no idea how to keep its secrets safe.
There is a very lax attitude to protecting information and sensitive sites, which are easily approachable," defense expert Aristos Aristotelous told AFP. "It's obvious that it is not very difficult for a spy to operate in Cyprus and gather information on military installations." To prove his point, he cited the instance of a well known Turkish journalist, Ahmed Ali Birand, who was given an official tour of the Paphos air base in the south west -- the very site Turkey had threatened to strike if Cyprus carried out its plan to deploy Russian S-300 missiles there.
Last December, after coming under considerable international pressure, Cyprus announced that the missiles would be sent to Crete. But while their fate remained uncertain, Cyprus hosted "an orgy of espionage," according to former defense minister Yiannakis Omirou. There were many foreigners looking for the S-300s at the time. They were searching all over the island. It was mainly the British followed by other EU members," Omirou told AFP. At the height of the speculation over the arrival of the S-300s, two alleged Israeli Mossad agents who came to the island in the guise of teachers on holiday, were arrested after supposedly looking for missile sites in Zygi, near Larnaca. At their subsequent trial the spying charges were controversially dropped, and the two are currently serving a three-year sentence for "approaching a military zone".
Tel Aviv has consistently maintained that the pair were part of a counter-terrorist unit trying to prevent a strike against Israel being launched from Cyprus. Thanks to its strategic importance, history and the government's Laissez-faire attitude, Cyprus is said to have the highest concentration of diplomats and intelligence gatherers per square kilometer (mile) than anywhere in the world. Nicosia houses large U.S. and Russian embassies, added to which the two British bases on the island accommodate huge eavesdropping antennae for monitoring the region.
Their activity is no secret to the Cypriot authorities -- indeed, the Cyprus intelligence service cooperates with its foreign counterparts in combatting international terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering on the island. Their activity is more important than selling state secrets, so I don't think anyone would be surprised if there was mutual cooperation in these areas," said a Western source.
The British high commission reacted angrily to the publication by the Greek Cypriot daily politis of the names of six alleged British agents active in Cyprus, which it took from a list published on the Internet. "The list is inaccurate but if they are serving or not their lives were put at risk," its spokesman said. Politis -- one of only a handful of publications worldwide to print the names -- was "irresponsible", he added.
But not everyone is fazed by the notion that Cyprus is a hotbed of spies. "I'm convinced there have been and there are spies in Cyprus from M16. It goes on everywhere, we shouldn't be paranoid, it's natural," Marios Matsakis, a member of the parliamentary defense committee, told AFP. He said it was "no secret" that spies came to Cyprus attached to the diplomatic corps as cover.
"They must have a facade, some even come as businessmen or even scholars," he added. Cyprus may be crawling with spies, but if one Western expert is to be believed, their tasks are hardly in the James Bond category. "Why spend money on sophisticated spying techniques when all you have to do is read the local press?" he asked. (AFP)
Cyprus has a longstanding reputation, lingering from the Cold War spying bonanza, as the region's espionage center for the Middle East and Balkans. Most Cypriot politicians seem to believe still that the island is crawling with spooks trying to winkle out military secrets. But some intelligence experts suggest the real problem is that the government has no idea how to keep its secrets safe.
There is a very lax attitude to protecting information and sensitive sites, which are easily approachable," defense expert Aristos Aristotelous told AFP. "It's obvious that it is not very difficult for a spy to operate in Cyprus and gather information on military installations." To prove his point, he cited the instance of a well known Turkish journalist, Ahmed Ali Birand, who was given an official tour of the Paphos air base in the south west -- the very site Turkey had threatened to strike if Cyprus carried out its plan to deploy Russian S-300 missiles there.
Last December, after coming under considerable international pressure, Cyprus announced that the missiles would be sent to Crete. But while their fate remained uncertain, Cyprus hosted "an orgy of espionage," according to former defense minister Yiannakis Omirou. There were many foreigners looking for the S-300s at the time. They were searching all over the island. It was mainly the British followed by other EU members," Omirou told AFP. At the height of the speculation over the arrival of the S-300s, two alleged Israeli Mossad agents who came to the island in the guise of teachers on holiday, were arrested after supposedly looking for missile sites in Zygi, near Larnaca. At their subsequent trial the spying charges were controversially dropped, and the two are currently serving a three-year sentence for "approaching a military zone".
Tel Aviv has consistently maintained that the pair were part of a counter-terrorist unit trying to prevent a strike against Israel being launched from Cyprus. Thanks to its strategic importance, history and the government's Laissez-faire attitude, Cyprus is said to have the highest concentration of diplomats and intelligence gatherers per square kilometer (mile) than anywhere in the world. Nicosia houses large U.S. and Russian embassies, added to which the two British bases on the island accommodate huge eavesdropping antennae for monitoring the region.
Their activity is no secret to the Cypriot authorities -- indeed, the Cyprus intelligence service cooperates with its foreign counterparts in combatting international terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering on the island. Their activity is more important than selling state secrets, so I don't think anyone would be surprised if there was mutual cooperation in these areas," said a Western source.
The British high commission reacted angrily to the publication by the Greek Cypriot daily politis of the names of six alleged British agents active in Cyprus, which it took from a list published on the Internet. "The list is inaccurate but if they are serving or not their lives were put at risk," its spokesman said. Politis -- one of only a handful of publications worldwide to print the names -- was "irresponsible", he added.
But not everyone is fazed by the notion that Cyprus is a hotbed of spies. "I'm convinced there have been and there are spies in Cyprus from M16. It goes on everywhere, we shouldn't be paranoid, it's natural," Marios Matsakis, a member of the parliamentary defense committee, told AFP. He said it was "no secret" that spies came to Cyprus attached to the diplomatic corps as cover.
"They must have a facade, some even come as businessmen or even scholars," he added. Cyprus may be crawling with spies, but if one Western expert is to be believed, their tasks are hardly in the James Bond category. "Why spend money on sophisticated spying techniques when all you have to do is read the local press?" he asked. (AFP)