The alarm lasted for about half an hour, while a warning message in English was sent to the mobile phones of residents and personnel of the British bases.
The message referred to a threat and urged people in the area to remain indoors, away from doors and windows, until further notice. Around thirty minutes later, a second message was issued announcing that the alert had ended.
So far there has been no official information about what exactly the base’s radars detected or how the incident was handled.
Cyprus government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said yesterday that all the required protocols were activated. He also clarified that no F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft took off from the Andreas Papandreou Air Base.
At the diplomatic level, a telephone conversation also took place between US Senator Marco Rubio and his Cypriot counterpart. The content of the discussion has not been disclosed, but it is considered a significant development, particularly following the decision of the US Department of State to upgrade its travel advisory for Cyprus from Level 1 to Level 3, recommending that American citizens avoid all non-essential travel.
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