Asia-Pacific
Cyprus-India: National Guard chief meets India’s Defence Secretary, next stop Athens
National Guard chief Lt. Gen. Emmanouil Theodorou met India’s Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh on October 13, with training, security and emerging technologies on the table.
The Chief of the National Guard, Lieutenant General Emmanouil Theodorou, met on Tuesday, October 13, at the National Guard General Staff headquarters with the Defence Secretary of India, Rajesh Kumar Singh. The Indian official was accompanied by members of his delegation and by India’s High Commissioner to Cyprus, Manish.
According to the announcement of the General Staff, the two sides discussed matters of common interest, with emphasis on further strengthening bilateral military cooperation and upgrading joint activities in three areas: training, security and emerging technologies. The photos released by the General Staff show an enlarged meeting of the two delegations, with officers from all three branches of the Indian armed forces.
Maritime security and defence industry
Singh’s visit to Cyprus lasted from October 12 to 13. India’s Ministry of Defence had announced that the main themes of the talks would be maritime security and defence industrial cooperation, aiming to strengthen bilateral cooperation especially in the maritime domain, according to state broadcaster All India Radio. The programme included contacts with his counterparts at the Cypriot Ministry of Defence.
On the first day Singh was at the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KEBE), meeting representatives of Cyprus’s defence and space industry. There the Cyprus Defence and Space Industry Cluster (CyDSIC), which operates under KEBE, presented the capabilities of Cypriot companies in defence, space and dual-use technologies, and the director general of Invest Cyprus also took part.
From Nicosia to Athens
After Cyprus, Singh goes to Greece, where he will have contacts with the senior political and military leadership as part of his tour, which runs until October 15. The visit follows recent contacts between Nikos Dendias and the Indian ambassador on defence cooperation, and the discussion about Greece’s absence from the Tarang Shakti 2026 exercise.
Nicosia and New Delhi have upgraded their relations after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Cyprus in June 2025 and President Nikos Christodoulides’s visit to India in May 2026. India’s Ministry of Defence places the tour in the effort to deepen defence ties with EU partners, after the signing of the EU-India Security and Defence Partnership.
The National Guard, which in October paraded with new weapon systems, has meanwhile opened channels with the armed forces of Lebanon and the United Kingdom in the last two weeks.
