Cyprus Intelligence Service

The Central Intelligence Service (CIS, KYP) is the intelligence-gathering body of Cyprus. It was reorganised and given official status by a 14 April 2016 Parliamentary bill. The CIS was initially founded in 1970 by President Archbishop Makarios.^[2] The new Independent Authority was renamed "Cyprus Intelligence Service" and is responsible for internal and external national security, i.e. a Cypriot combination of MI5 and MI6.

Since 4 May 2016, the Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades has been expected to appoint (Presidential proposal appointment by Council of Ministers) the director of the new CIS and the two sub-commanders under the new legislation (Article 7). The new law, N. 75(I) of 2016, was published in the official journal on 4 May 2016 and entered into force immediately. No appointments have been made to implement the new law. The decision was taken to continue with the old structure of the service until the necessary regulations required by the new law are enacted and also the prospect of a solution of the Cyprus Problem played a role for this decision.

Before the entry into force of the new law and until today, the political director has been Ambassador Kyriakos Kouros and the director Marios Christofides, who is a senior police officer. The rest of the members are either police officers or members of the Cyprus National Guard placed in the CIS Headquarters in Ayios Andreas, Nicosia.

Under the new law, the CIS will be able to have its own employees either as permanent members of the intelligence services or under contract and even be able to buy services from the private sector. Its budget will be confidential and under the control of the new director.

The new CIS Law contains 35 Articles and enacts the Cyprus Intelligence Service as an independent authority liable to the President of the Republic, currently Nikolaos Chrysanthou Anastasiades (2013-2018), and the Council of Ministers.

The current head of KYP is Tasos Tzionis, who replaced Kyriacos Kouros on June 1, 2023, with the deputy chief being Panikos Stavrou.^[3][4]

The head of the Intelligence Service will also serve as an advisor to the National Security Council (And also co-ordinator), which was formed in 2023.^[5]

The Cypriot Intelligence Service is believed to be the culprit of one of the largest intelligence thefts in UN history, having stolen over 6500 documents and files containing classified files on the UNs negotiations with the Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot leaders.^[6] A Greek-Cypriot intelligence officer reportedly befriended Sonja Bachmann, a senior aide of Alexander Downer (Who was Australian Foreign Minister and at the time a senior UN adviser to the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon).^[6] The operation is believed to have begun around the date of 10 September 2009, when the second round of talks was to begin. The documents being leaked were originally sent to Phileleftheros under the guise of the leaks being sent from New York as a means to throw off investigators as to where the leaks were originally originating (later claimed to have found out to be from somewhere in Nicosia).^[7] To gain the information, KYP used hackers to steal Buchmann's e-mail passwords, and then using that, during hours she was not present at her hotel, officers accessed her e-mails and downloaded all her files.^[7]

Some of the leaked files include:^[8]

• A meeting between Alexander Downer and Ahmet Davutoğlu (Then Foreign Minister of Turkey)
• A meeting between Downer and Mehmet Ali Talat (Turkish-Cypriot leader)
• A meeting that happened in New York between Lynn Pascoe (Then Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs) and Frank Urbancic (Then US ambassador to Cyprus)
• A document that divided members of the Holy Synod of Cyprus based on their views regarding the Annan plan

In 2012, Cypriot Intelligence began surveilling a Swedish-Lebanese citizen by the name of Hossam Yaakoub,^[9] who was a member of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, whilst he was also surveilling Israeli tourists coming into Larnaca International Airport and planning a major terrorist attack (Which was later found out to be with approximately 8.5 tonnes of Ammonium nitrate explosive).^[10] His house was later raided by Cyprus Police who proceeded to arrest him and found the explosives.^[11]

Whilst Espen Barth Eide was serving as the Special Adviser for Cyprus, it was to the belief of KYP, that Espen was a national security threat who was working to undermine the cypriot government and as a result was placed under surveillance.^[12]

Before Eide was set to leave Cyprus, he set up a secret meeting with the then leader of the communist party of Cyprus, Andros Kyprianou, with the meeting being set up by Kyprianou's personal secretary and Mr. Eide via SMS and in secret, however, KYP had tapped Eides phone and so were alerted to the meeting and had set up surveillance outside the headquarters of AKEL (Cypriot communist party), where the meeting was to take place.^[12][13]

A few days later, Fileleftheros published an article stating that the head of a political party was engaging in secret meetings with Eide and because of that, Mr. Kyprianou confronted President Anastasiades to which the President reportedly said "I know you may also meet with Mr. Eida, either at the party office or elsewhere" and also reportedly said to him "It is possible that the one who you meet is being watched".^[14]

When the press published the information about the meeting, KYP Director Kyriakos Kouros contacted Kyprianou directly and assured him that he (Kyprianou) himself was not under surveillance but that Eide was a seemingly national security threat.^[12]

In late June 2023, it was reported by Cypriot media that the Cypriot Intelligence Service, in conjunction with the Israeli Mossad and the American Central Intelligence Agency, foiled a series of terrorist attacks on Cypriot soil which would have allegedly been executed on behalf of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).^[15][16]

The cell which was to execute the attack had been staging out of the occupied north of the island where they had assumed the authorities would not be able to surveil them due to the ongoing conflict between Cyprus and Turkey, however, this was not the case as there had been a surveillance operation working on both sides of the ceasefire line.^[17]

The would-be attackers were surveilling targets, especially in the Limassol district and other areas of Israeli interest.^[18]

The Cypriot authorities managed to secure the equipment that would have been used however the main suspect had fled from the Turkish-occupied north but was later arrested by Mossad.^[19][20]

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the Cypriot authorities for foiling the attack.^[21][19]

In October 2023, after intelligence received from the CIA, the Cypriot Ministry of Foreign Affairs revoked the visa of Russian journalist Alexander Gasyuk who worked at the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta, for allegedly surveilling and conducting espionage on targets in Nicosia, Nicosias official reason citing national security concerns.^[22][23] As a result of this, Cypriot Intelligence followed and later apprehended the suspect who originally tried resisting arrest and was injured as a result.^[24] Though later being deported, Russia demanded that Cyprus should apologize for the incident and the spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova, called it a provocation and a co-ordinated campaign from the west.^[25][26][27]