Bases police in joint exercise with CyPol

British bases police and their Cypriot counterparts (CyPol) have just completed an annual week-long joint exercise.

The annual drill saw the SBA police’s negotiator team involved for a third year in a row, aiming to test multiple assets within MMAD – CyPol Special Forces.

Sovereign Base Areas Police chief, Chris Eyre said the SBA police were privileged to work with Cyprus police in training of officers in some of the most complex areas of policing.

“The involvement of our qualified hostage negotiators in major hostage siege exercises with Cyprus police not only ensures our skills are current, it also ensures that we can work together in the event of any hostage siege situation,” he said.

Speaking shortly after the exercise had finished, SBA Police Chief of Staff, Chief Inspector Maria Atalioti, who headed up the team attending, reinforced the chief’s words.

She said: “As always, the exercise was extremely valuable to all those involved. For the last three years we have established very close co-operation and liaison with the Cyprus Police Hostage Negotiator’ team.

“We currently have a team of three qualified hostage negotiators that have been trained in the UK and the Cyprus police have a team of 37 negotiators and their team was established about 12 years ago.

“We have exchange visits between our forces to view equipment and exchange ideas and views about the negotiators’ field and the aim of this co-operation is to strengthen our capabilities in hostage negotiation in an effort to make Cyprus safer for all our communities and visitors.”

In 2019, members of the CyPol Negotiator Unit and various other members of MMAD also took part in a large-scale anti-terrorism exercise within the Western SBAs.

During the exercise, both forces were required to work seamlessly together to ensure they were ready should their skills ever be required in a real-time situation, an announcement said.