The daily Politis reported last week, citing classified documents it obtained, that the Cypriot cabinet had recently approved the start of negotiations for the sale of 11 Mi-35P attack helicopters to Serbia.
Savvas Petoussis, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
In documents seen by Politis, Cyprus intends to replace the Mi-35P with 12 new attack helicopters. The proposal involves buying six aircraft initially and another six later, over a 10-year period.
The defence ministry spokesperson Christos Pieris told the Sunday Mail that Serbia has shown interest in obtaining those helicopters and one Serbian official visited the island recently for this purpose.
Politics disclosed earlier this year that Serbia’s Assistant Minister for Material Resources Nenad Miloradovic had visited the Andreas Papandreou airbase to inspect the helicopters.
Cyprus is keen to dispose of the helicopters as they need to be overhaul by 2022 and the country will have to pay $117 million for those works.
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