PARIS (Dispatches) -- France has deployed its Auvergne frigate to Cyprus, sending a message to Ankara that Paris remains committed to its Cypriot and Greek partners in the ongoing maritime exclusive economic area (EEZ) dispute.
“This deployment underlines how important France considers this part of the Mediterranean Sea,” Paul Merveilleux de Vignaux, the vessel’s captain, told reporters.
The 6,000 tonne Auvergne has complement of 145 officers and seamen, and is decked out with a bristling array of advanced sensors and weapons systems, including a passive electronically-scanned array radar, two sonars, a 76-mm naval gun, dozens of air defense and cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. The frigate also carries a lone NH90 multirole helicopter.
De Vignaux said the Auvergne would be stationed in the region from now until January, and would collect intelligence.
The deployment is the 12th for the Auvergne, with de Vignaux characterizing the eastern Mediterranean island as the “centerpiece” of support to “efficient and sustainable naval operations” by France.
The Auvergne’s deployment comes on the heels of fresh tensions between Nicosia and Ankara amid Turkish warnings demanding that Greece and Cyprus not make any attempts to send research ships to the “Turkish continental shelf,” and Greek and Cypriot condemnation of “illegal” Turkish activities in the eastern Mediterranean.
Athens and Nicosia dispute Ankara’s “continental shelf” delineation, pointing out that the claims run into areas close to the island’s northern coast, and even jut into Cypriot waters to the west of the island some 250 km from Turkey’s coast.
The French warship’s visit also comes ahead of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to Paris as U.S. and French leaders continue to mend ties damaged by the secrecy-laden signature of a new tripartite defense pact between America, Britain and Australia in September which robbed France of a $65 billion submarine contract with Canberra. During her visit, Harris is expected to speak to French President Emmanuel Macron, and other leaders gathered in the French capital to discuss the crisis in Libya.
France and Cyprus maintain warm defense ties, and French energy giant Total has teamed up with Italy’s Eni to conduct offshore drilling in waters off the island’s south coast next year. Paris has regularly deployed its warships, including the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, to the region, and Nicosia allows the French Air Force and Navy to use its airbase and port facilities.