MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Blue Helmets off to Cyprus

There are 237 Argentine troops deployed in Cyprus

Argentine defense authorities bid farewell earlier this week to the new group of troops to be deployed in Cyprus as part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Blue Helmets (UNFICYP), it was reported in Buenos Aires.

On Jan. 30, the first of three flights of an Air Force Boeing 737 transport aircraft took off. In 1994, the Argentine Air Force was chosen by the United Nations (UN) to replace the British Army Air Corps (A.A.C.) helicopter squadron after being stationed there for some 30 years.

Since then, the Argentine unit has been performing observation and aerial reconnaissance tasks, MEDEVAC (medical evacuation) and CASEVAC (emergency casualty evacuation) flights, resupply missions, and familiarization flights. They are also in charge of command, control, and liaison tasks, transport of personnel and material, as well as the supervision of those flights not related to their helicopters, but which take place close to the buffer zone. Thus, the Argentine Air Force has a permanent presence on the island.

“It is a task of enormous responsibility that for more than 30 years the Argentine Republic has been deploying as a Peace Force in Cyprus, in a United Nations mission,” Defense Minister Luis Petri said. “For the next six months, you are going to fulfill one of the most vital roles for which you have been trained and enlisted, where the Armed Forces have to recover the full capacity to act,” he added.

“You have prepared your whole lives for this moment. So I ask you to represent and leave the Argentine Republic in the best way, we will be waiting for you here with your families and the Homeland,” he told the 201 troops from the Argentine Army, the Argentine Navy, and the Argentine Air Force, while the so-called UNFLIGHT 61 squad is made up of 36 troops.

UNFICYP was established by the United Nations on March 27, 1964, to prevent the resumption of hostilities between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, which previously clashed over a territorial dispute.