Turkey continues its illegal acts in Cyprus in every possible way. Such is its indifference to international legitimacy that in order not to even enter the process of recognizing the Republic of Cyprus and to cooperate with it, it even endangers the safety of flights. Such a case arose just yesterday at noon.
Nicosia was forced to proceed with a warning NOTAM to ensure as much as possible that even in the part of the FIR that it does not control due to the conditions of occupation in the northern part of the island, passing passenger and commercial flights will be informed so that there are no tragic accidents.
More specifically, Nicosia proceeded to issue NOTAM A0012/23 in which it states the following: "To all concerned: Information has been received that the Turkish military forces will conduct an exercise (25,000 feet - 50,000 feet) without fire within the northern part of the Nicosia FIR.
The exercise has not been coordinated with the Cypriot authorities responsible for issuing information on the Nicosia FIR and is not validated. For this reason the route TOMBI-IDAKU (runway in red on map 1) is closed in order to ensure the safety of air traffic despite the negative impact on regularity and cost-performance.
Pilots are requested to exercise caution and maintain continuous radio communication with the Nicosia Air Traffic Control Center from January 11 at 7:45 a.m. to January 12 at 1:30 p.m.
The FIR of Nicosia, however, today and tomorrow will not only have Turkish fighters and aircraft, but everything shows that there will also be a strong presence of fighters and aircraft from Israel that will carry out aerial refueling along the points TOSKA - MAROS - APLON - STEPA - PASOS (runways in red on the map 2) as reported by NOTAM A0009/23. These are airstrips that start from the border of the Nicosia FIR with Israel and end up to the border of the Nicosia FIR with the Athens FIR.
It is understood that in approximately the same period of time, Israeli and Turkish fighters will "share" the Nicosia FIR, sending messages to each other!
