The United Kingdom is considering sending an aircraft carrier in Cyprus\u2019 direction, with the conflict in the Middle East continuing into its second full week, according to reports on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The BBC quoted \u201cdefence sources\u201d as having said that the crew of the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales has been given notice that the ship must set sail from Portsmouth in five days.<\/p>\n
It added that \u201cthis may raise speculation that the carrier could be deployed to the Mediterranean to help defend British interests threatened during the conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n
The development comes with the UK already having sent two AW159\u00a0Wildcat helicopters<\/a>, armed with anti-drone missiles, to Cyprus, with the\u00a0HMS Dragon<\/a>\u00a0Type 45 destroyer warship also expected to depart from Portsmouth within the coming days.<\/p>\n British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had announced the deployment of the HMS Dragon and the two helicopters after the country\u2019s Akrotiri air force base in Cyprus had been hit by an Iranian-made drone<\/a> in the early hours of last Monday morning.<\/p>\n Since then, Starmer has confirmed that Cyprus, and more specifically Akrotiri, has been used as the launchpad<\/a> for missions aimed at engaging and shooting down drones fired from Iran.<\/p>\n Those operations are being led by F-35 fighter jets<\/a>, which have been stationed in Cyprus since last month.<\/p>\n With the amount of military hardware on the island and in its vicinity increasing, Starmer had said last Thursday that \u201cI want to be really clear to everybody in Cyprus that we\u2019re taking every measure that is needed to protect them, to protect the airbase, along with the other places in the region\u201d.<\/p>\n British assets on the island are being joined by assets from its other two guarantor powers, Greece and Turkey, with Greece having sent<\/a> two frigates and four F-16 fighter jets to the island last week, and Turkey having deployed<\/a> four F-16 fighter jets of its own, which are set to arrive on the island on Sunday.<\/p>\n All three of Cyprus\u2019 guarantor powers seem to be heading towards alignment regarding Cyprus\u2019 role in the conflict.<\/p>\n Following the arrival of the Greek F-16s on Monday, Turkey lodged no protest, and the country\u2019s defence ministry\u2019s spokesman rear admiral Zeki Akturk instead announced that a delegation from the Greek air force will\u00a0visit Turkey<\/a>\u00a0next Monday \u201cwithin the framework of bilateral relations and regional developments\u201d.<\/p>\n He then described the Greek delegation\u2019s planned visit of as a \u201cconfidence-building measure\u201d.<\/p>\n Then, on Friday,\u00a0a delegation from the Turkish navy visited the UK ahead of the deployment of the\u00a0HMS Dragon\u00a0to the region.<\/p>\n Most recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer held a telephone conversation on Saturday, immediately after which the deployment of the four Turkish F-16s was announced to the public.<\/p>\n In addition to Greece, Turkey, and the UK, other European Union member states have also sent military assets in Cyprus\u2019 direction, with France\u2019s Languedoc frigate having arrived in Cypriot waters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n French President Emmanuel Macron had also announced that the aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle<\/a> will also be deployed in the eastern Mediterranean. It is believed that the aircraft carrier and its strike group passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on Friday.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Italy has\u00a0announced its intention<\/a>\u00a0to send the\u00a0Federico Martinego\u00a0frigate to Cyprus, while\u00a0Spain<\/a>\u00a0is to send the\u00a0Cristobal Colon\u00a0frigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom is considering sending an aircraft carrier in Cyprus\u2019 direction, with the conflict in the Middle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2307,10528,59,57,58,2294,126979,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-464005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-cyprus-news","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-greatbritain","13":"tag-home","14":"tag-iran-crisis","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}