Why its time for the US to completely lift the Cyprus arms embargo

While Cyprus has become a key US partner in the Eastern Mediterranean, there is still a partial arms embargo on Cyprus as US law currently prohibits providing Cyprus with US-made weaponry.

The US only partially lifted the embargo a few years ago because of concerns over Cyprus’s links to Russia, which US lawmakers called on Cyprus to address. Cyprus has now fulfilled these requirements. Lifting the arms embargo has also taken on new significance in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Turkey’s revisionism in the region.

Ari Cicurel, a Senior Policy Analyst at The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), joins me today to explain why it’s time for the Biden administration to finally lift arms export restrictions on Cyprus.