A Turkish Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle spent much of Monday morning circling in the skies above Cyprus, between Nicosia and Kyrenia.

The drone had earlier been flying off the coast of Dalaman, in the southwest of Turkey, before flying up Turkey’s southern coast and then to Cyprus.

The drone’s excursion comes amid escalating tensions in the region, with Iran and Israel having exchanged missile fire for three consecutive nights and regional powers readying themselves for potential further escalations.

The Bayraktar TB2 has been previously deployed by Turkey to strike Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and People’s Protection Units (YPG) targets in Iraq and Syria and has also been used by the Ukrainian armed forces in their war against Russia, and by Azerbaijan during the second Karabakh war.

Last year, the north’s air traffic controllers’ trade union chairman Cem Kapisiz had warned that the north’s Gecitkale (Lefkoniko) airbase “may be used” by the Turkish air force if tensions continue to rise in the Middle East.

He had at the time told television channel Kanal Sim that Gecitkale (Lefkoniko) is currently being used by unarmed aircraft which operate in the region for “surveillance purposes”.

However, he said, “the war in the Middle East is getting hotter day by day”, and as such, “Gecitkale could be used if Turkey also gets involved in the tensions in the region.”

“There is always this possibility. When we think about our island and our status, and we see that our current politics is also warmongering, does the division of Cyprus and the potential of this division as it relates to Middle East’s tensions give the other guarantors a right to stop this?”

Gecitkale (Lefkoniko) airport was formally handed over to Turkey’s armed forces in January last year, having been used for military purposes since 2019.

The airport had seen regular passenger traffic as the north’s primary civilian airport between 2002 and 2004 while Ercan (Tymbou) airport underwent renovations but had largely remained unused save for recreational aircraft.

Previously, Turkey had briefly stationed six F-16 fighter jets at the airport in 1998 in response to Greece’s positioning of four F-16s and two Lockheed C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft at Paphos airport amid rising tensions between the two countries.

The airport had been leased to former Polly Peck and Kibris Media Group owner Asil Nadir between 2010 and 2023. He had harboured ambitions of transforming it into a VIP and charter hub, but the ‘government’ terminated their contract with him in January last year.