Summary: Signatory Cyprus has committed to ratify the convention, but its parliament still has not approved draft ratification legislation introduced in 2011. Cyprus has participated in several meetings of the convention, most recently in September 2017. It, however, abstained from the vote on a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2017.

Cyprus states that it has never used or produced cluster munitions. It has not provided information on its stockpiled cluster munitions, but transferred 3,760 cluster munitions and 2,559 submunitions to Bulgaria in 2014 for the purposes of destruction.

Policy

The Republic of Cyprus signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 23 September 2009.

In October 2017, Cyprus explained why it abstained from voting for a non-binding resolution bythe UN General Assembly (UNGA) thaturges states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitionsto “join as soon as possible.”Cyprus said that itsratification of the convention is dependent on “considerations related to the abnormal security situation on the island” and expressed hope that “those issues can and will be resolved, which will enable us to ratify the Convention and vote in favour of the draft resolution.”[1]

Cyprus made the same remarks in 2015 and 2016 when abstaining from previous UNGA resolutions promoting implementation and universalization of the convention.[2]

Cyprus participated in one international conference of the Oslo Process to develop the convention text in Vienna in December 2007, but attended the formal negotiations of the convention in Dublin in May 2008 and the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008 only as an observer.

Cyprus subsequently signed the convention at the UN in New York in September 2009, becoming the 100^thsignatory to the convention. Cyprus informed States Parties that it was expected to complete ratification in 2012 following the introduction of the legislation approving ratification in the House of Representatives in 2011.[3] However, in April 2013, a government official informed the Monitor that ratification of the convention had “unfortunately…been put on hold” due to “other considerations.”[4] In May 2015, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Monitor that the parliament was still considering ratification and “the fact that Turkey, whose occupation forces have been stationed illegally on Cyprus since 1974, has not yet joined the convention.”[5] Since 2011, various government officials have communicated with the Monitor and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) about the ratification process.[6]

Cyprus has participated in several Meetings of States Parties of the convention, most recently the Seventh Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2017. It attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in 2011–2013.[7]

Cyprus has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2017.[8]

Cyprus is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Cyprus is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Use, production, and transfer

Cyprus informed the Monitor in 2012 that it has never used, produced, or transferred cluster munitions.[9]

Stockpiling and destruction

Cyprus has not provided information on the quantities and types of its stockpiled cluster munitions orsubmitted a voluntary Article 7 transparency report detailing such information.

However, Cyprus transferred 3,760 4.2-inch OF projectiles for the GRM 20 mortar system and 2,559 M20G submunitions to Bulgaria in 2014 for the purposes of stockpile destruction, according to Bulgaria’s 2017 transparency report for the convention.[10] According to Bulgaria, the cluster munitions are held by the private company EXPAL Bulgaria, which it said “should apply for and obtain a permission for destruction of [the cluster munitions].”

Cyprus has 122mm BM-21 Grad multiple launch rockets, but it is not known if these weapons have cluster munition warheads.[11] Cyprus acquired other systems capable of delivering submunitions, including Zuzana 155mm howitzers imported via Greece from Slovakia in 2007 and M63 Plamenand M77 Oganjmultiple-barrel rocket launchers from Yugoslavia in the 1980s.[12]

Additionally, in 2010, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official asserted that Turkish armed forces “have stocked considerable quantities of cluster bombs in the occupied territory of the Republic [of Cyprus].”[13]

Cyprus has not indicated if it will retain cluster munitions for research or training.