The multinational civil-military co-operation exercise “Argonaftis 2022” that took place within Cyprus Republic’s sea, air and territory area wrapped up on Friday.
The Ministry of Defence noted in a press release that the objective goals set by the Minister of Defence, as the competent Minister for the implementation of the exercise, have been achieved. It added that the services involved in the implementation of the National Plans “Estia “and “Tefkros” had the opportunity to implement and assess their operational procedures for addressing incidents concerning reception of civilians and maintain a high degree of readiness in dealing with similar incidents.
The exercise, that began on the 16th of May, was planned under the coordination of the National Guard General Staff of the Ministry in cooperationwith the Foreign Ministry, the Civil Defence and the Search and Rescue Coordination Center, as well as with the participation ofstate services of Cyprus.
A press release by the National Guard General Staff, said that the excercise was conducted in three phases and its aim was to test the special national plans “Estia” and “Tefkros”, which provide for receiving civilians from neighbouring areas as well as addressing Search and Rescue incidences within the Republic of Cyprus area of responsibility.
Participating countries were the Republic of Cyprus, Greece, the UK, France, Italy, Egypt, the US and Israel.
Chief of the National Guard General Staff Lt. General, Demokritos Zevrakis, said that the exercise is of great importance, adding that the testing of the procedures and the Special National Plans demonstrated the smooth and effective cooperation between the National Guard, services of the Republic of Cyprus and services of the armed forces of the participating countries. He stressed that the exercise highlighted the comparative advantage of the Republic of Cyprus for dealing with the removal of civilians in the wider Eastern Mediterranean region.
Source: Cyprus News Agency