USS Oak Hill arrives in Cyprus
The United States navy’s amphibious landing dock ship the USS Oak Hill docked in Limassol on Friday to conduct scheduled maintenance.
According to the Defence Visual Information Distribution Service, the stop in Limassol will “allow the sailors and marines an opportunity to complete corrective and preventative maintenance actions which cannot be accomplished while at sea.”
The ship’s commanding officer Jason Nowell said, “conducting maintenance in Cyprus will enable the Oak Hill to continue to operate at full readiness while also growing our relationships with the industrial base assisting us with repairs and the local Cypriots we meet during our stay.”
“In turn, this will benefit future units deploying in the region,” he said.
While the ship is in Limassol, the marines who would ordinarily be aboard it will participate in what has been described as “routine bilateral training exercises” with Cyprus’ National Guard both in Paphos and Larnaca.
The Defence Visual Information Distribution Service said these exercises are “part of [the marines’] scheduled deployment”.
The USS Oak Hill had in August taken part in joint exercises with the USS Wasp and the Turkish navy’s amphibious assault ship the TCG Anadolu, and fellow Turkish navy ship the TCG Gokova in August.
The USS Wasp’s official social media page at the time had said the exercises had taken place “in a demonstration of enduring cooperation and mutual commitment to maritime security”.
After those exercises had taken place, the USS Wasp docked in the Turkish Aegean city of Izmir, but this was met with controversy after two sailors from the ship were attacked by 15 people while walking down the city’s central Cyprus Martyrs Street.
The USS Wasp’s presence in Cyprus had also generated controversy on the island, with Akel accusing the Cypriot government of dragging Cyprus into the middle of extremely heightened tensions by consenting to the “continuing concentration of foreign military forces on our island”.
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar charged that “South Cyprus has become a military stopover point for countries which show at every opportunity they are party to the crisis and that they are complicit in the crimes against humanity being committed, and it has even started to use its civilian ports for military purposes.”
Meanwhile, Turkey’s defence ministry issued a warning to the Republic of Cyprus over military activities on the island.
“The recent increase in activity on the island of Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot Administration’s ongoing activities are being meticulously monitored,” they said,
Despite this, Cyprus’ Defence Minister was resolute in his defence of the ship’s docking in Cyprus, speaking of his “sadness” at “some publications and also some political parties” which criticised the government’s handling of the situation.
“There is nothing reprehensible, there is no fault, we are a recognised, democratic, modern state inside the international community, and we have every right, the inalienable right, to perform exercises for the purpose of being ready if and when issues arise,” he said.