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When PM Modi went to Cyprus: A Mediterranean push, a buffer against Turkey
Written by Shairee Malhotra
On June 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the island nation of Cyprus on a two-day visit, marking the third by an Indian PM after Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002, as a key stopover on his way to the G7 summit in Canada. This marked Modi's first foreign tour since Operation Sindoor against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the Middle East and volatile global developments.
As evident in Modi's visit in February to the port city of Marseille in France, which also recently hosted the inaugural edition of Raisina MED — an extension of New Delhi's flagship Raisina Dialogue — India is keenly watching and investing in its outreach to the Mediterranean. With its strategic location in the Eastern Mediterranean at the crossroads of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Cyprus is positioning itself as a key partner and important node towards realising the India-Middle East-Europe-Economic Corridor (IMEC) linking India to Europe. This convergent outlook on connectivity underpins the two countries' interest in expanding ties.
Modi's visit focused on boosting avenues for India-Cyprus bilateral collaboration across a range of sectors from trade and investment to innovation, security and connectivity, and mobility and tourism.
Referring to Cyprus as the 'gateway into Europe' for Indian companies, President Nikos Christodoulides and Modi addressed economic stakeholders at the India-Cyprus CEO Forum in Limassol, pitching greater business linkages in the areas of civil aviation, shipbuilding, startups, infrastructure and innovation. Bilateral trade in 2023-2024 was valued at $136.96 million, and a newly launched trilateral India-Greece-Cyprus (IGC) Business and Investment Council is likely to accelerate this. Already, Cyprus, with a population of only 1.3 million, is among the top 10 sources of Foreign Direct Investment into India due to its friendly taxation regime and the routing of various European investments via Cyprus. Freshly signed MoUs between NSE International Exchange Gift City and Cyprus Stock Exchange will bolster financial ties. Moreover, Cyprus may become the second European country after France to adopt India's UPI for cross-border transactions. In tandem with recent custom, Modi also interacted with the 11,000-strong Indian diaspora in Cyprus, with plans for direct air connectivity and enhanced people-to-people ties on the radar.
As the India-EU entente strengthens across multiple sectors from technology and trade to security and defence, this outreach to Cyprus forms part of a robust and expanded Indian footprint in Europe, moving beyond traditional power centres and tapping new geopolitically significant geographies. In recent years, New Delhi has deepened its engagement with the Central and Eastern Europe region, the Nordics, the Baltics and now increasingly the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Cyprus's upcoming six-month Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2026 is an opportunity to shape narratives at the EU level and progress towards concluding the India-EU Free Trade Agreement, already touted as a priority by the Cypriot government.
The visit was strategically timed on the heels of rising Indian tensions with Turkey that provided overt political and military support in the form of drones, cargo planes and a warship to Pakistan during clashes following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. Since then, India has attempted to galvanise countries to unify against terrorism and consolidate global support following Operation Sindoor and its targeting of Pakistan's terrorist infrastructure.
Both India and Cyprus have historically reinforced each other's positions in their respective regional disputes on Kashmir and Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. Considered amongst India's most 'time-trusted and dependable friends', Cyprus has supported a permanent seat for India on the United Nations Security Council, and its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. To counter a belligerent Turkey-Pakistan-Azerbaijan axis, India has systematically deepened relations with Greece, Cyprus and Armenia, which have their own troubled histories with this alignment. Against this backdrop, Modi's visit to the Green Line, the demilitarised buffer zone between Cyprus and the Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus, was a symbolic act of solidarity with the former.
The India-Cyprus joint declaration devoted a substantial section towards counter-terrorism efforts, including dismantling of terrorist infrastructure and safe havens, coupled with strong Cypriot condemnation of the Pahalgam terrorist attack. The two countries are aiming to expand defence ties, building upon a previous MoU signed in 2022 and a Bilateral Defence Cooperation Programme (BDCP) in 2025, through greater defence industrial cooperation, new dialogues on maritime security and cybersecurity, and cooperation on crises responses and emerging technologies. Renewable energy is another area of convergence, given Cypriot efforts in gas exploration in the resource-laden Eastern Mediterranean and India's quest to diversify energy imports.
As New Delhi and Nicosia upgrade their partnership and deliberate on the formation of a five-year roadmap for the future, harnessing economic and geopolitical synergies will pave the way for a promising, fresh era in Indo-Cypriot relations.
The writer is Deputy Director and Europe Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation
