Closing summary
… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today!
French president Emmanuel Macron has said France would increase the number of nuclear warheads and allow for temporary deployment of its nuclear-armed aircraft to allied countries for exercises as part of its new nuclear strategy seeking to “Europeanise” its deterrence programme (15:29, 15:50).
In a major speech at the nuclear submarines Navy base of Île Longue, Macron said Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom are expected to be involved in the programme, with London and Berlin playing particularly important roles (15:47, 16:00).
Several EU leaders confirmed their plans to engage with France on the details of the programme (16:44, 16:51, 17:04).
The president repeated his warnings that Europe needed to urgently step up its defence posture to respond to new, emerging threats and disintegration of rules on the use of nuclear weapons.
In other news,
Four Greek F-16 have landed in Cyprus as part of the Greek government’s response to overnight drone attacks on the island amid worsening security situation in the region and further threats from Iran (17:09, 18:12).
The European Commission said it will focus on helping member states with evacuating their citizens from the region, as several EU countries started their rescue missions today (9:58), and on monitoring broader energy, transport disruptions arising from the conflict (17:51).
15 US aircraft have left the military bases in southern Spain since the US and Israel launched weekend attacks on Iran after the Spanish government publicly criticised the strikes (11:29, 13:48, 14:23).
And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.
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Iran warns about further attacks on Cyprus
Fears that Cyprus is now the target of sustained attack by Iran appear to have been reinforced by statements made by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
General Sardar Jabbari has been quoted this afternoon as saying:
“The Americans have relocated most of their fighter jets to Cyprus. We will launch attacks on Cyprus until the Americans are forced to leave it too.”
[For what it’s worth, Cypriot officials insist that no US planes are present in the UK bases targeted by drones.]
Media in Greece, where the threat has made headlines, reported that the country’s defence minister Nikos Dendias with the commander in chief of the armed forces, Dimitris Choupis will be flying to Cyprus on Tuesday to coordinate defence efforts.
Athens has announced the deployment of two state-of- the-art frigates and two (13:09) – later changed to four (17:09) – F-16 fighter jets following the overnight drone strikes against RAF Akrotiri on the island.
