Larnaca Airport Crisis and the British Stance on It

Abstract

The topics of British policy in the Middle East have attracted the attention of researchers, but there are important topics that have not been highlighted clearly and sufficiently, and they remain a link in the missing episodes of history, including the topic of research marked (Larnaca Airport crisis and the British position on it. The Larnaca airport crisis is one of the historical events that took place in the late seventies of the twentieth century, as it caused a major political crisis between Egypt and Cyprus, and the resulting reaction on the Arab and international levels, especially Britain - the country in question - on the eighteenth of February 1978, Youssef Al-Sibai was assassinated in Nicosia The capital of Cyprus while he was present to deliver a speech before the African-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization and the kidnapping of a number of hostages. The Cypriot government had taken countermeasures and considered the Egyptian move a violation of its sovereignty. Therefore, violent clashes erupted at Larnaca Airport, which sparked Arab and international reactions, led by Britain. Its role was on two tracks, the first official and the second unofficial, but the two tracks did not put immediate and radical solutions to resolve the crisis, but rather Some doubts have been raised about fabricating the crisis and Britain's position on its developments