Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is expected to visit Cyprus on October 29, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Talks are expected to cover bilateral relations, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and developments in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The visit was first reported by the Palestinian ambassador to Cyprus, Abdallah Attari, in an interview with Phileleftheros.

The trip comes as the government faces criticism over its increasing support for Israeli interests in Cyprus.

Akel has attacked the creation of a Cyprus chapter of the Israel Allies Foundation by six MPs from Disy, Diko and Elam, which the party has said undermines the credibility of Cyprus in its efforts to press Turkey internationally on its ongoing occupation.

Cyprus and the Palestinians drew close in the 1960s and 1970s, when Archbishop Makarios steered the island away from its expected trajectory towards NATO and instead into the Non-Aligned Movement alongside Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

In September 1985 three gunmen from the PLO unit Force 17 killed an Israeli couple, Reuven and Esther Paltsur, and their friend Avraham Avneri aboard a yacht in Larnaca marina.

President Spyros Kyprianou condemned the killings and urged both sides to keep their conflict off Cyprus.

Cyprus rejected an Israeli extradition request and tried the three men itself, and Israel bombed the PLO headquarters in Tunis days later.

In February 1988 the PLO bought the Cypriot ferry Sol Phryne at auction in Limassol, renamed it Al Awda, “the Return”, and planned to carry 135 Palestinian deportees to Haifa.

Three PLO officials were killed by a car bomb in Limassol that weekend, and a limpet mine crippled the ship within days.

Cyprus recognised the State of Palestine immediately after its declaration in 1988.

A Cypriot representative office opened in Ramallah in 2009, and after the UN General Assembly vote of 2012, was upgraded to a full embassy, among the first in the EU to do so.

When Abbas visited in June 2022, then President Nicos Anastasiades pledged that close ties with Israel “would not be to the detriment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians”.

President Nikos Christodoulides visited Ramallah in 2023 and laid a wreath at Yasser Arafat’s tomb, and in March 2024 the first aid ship for Gaza left a Cypriot port.

Israel once declared Androulla Vassiliou, wife of former president George Vassiliou, persona non grata after a delegation she led tried to meet Arafat, who was confined to his compound in Ramallah.

Abbas, has led the Palestinian Authority since 2005, with his Fatah-dominated authority governing parts of the West Bank, while Hamas ran the Gaza strip.

Many Palestinians regard the authority as corrupt and criticise its security cooperation with Israel.

President Nikos Christodoulides received a delegation from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) at the presidential palace on Wednesday, with both sides pledging to strengthen relations between Cyprus, the United States and Israel.

The delegation was led by outgoing Aipac president Dr Bernard Kaminetsky and president-elect Yehuda Neuberger, who stressed that Aipac would continue to back Cyprus’ interests in Washington.

Talks reportedly covered the Cyprus issue and efforts to accelerate the “3+1” mechanism, which brings together Cyprus, Greece and Israel with the United States.

Members also attended a Nicosia ceremony honouring Jewish refugees and the children born between 1946 and 1949 at the former British military hospital.

Six MPs recently launched a Cyprus chapter of the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), those being Andreas Apostolou and Chrysis Pantelides of Diko, George Karoullas and Charalambos Petrides of Disy, and Sotiris Ioannou and Marios Pelekanos of Elam.

A Cyprus chapter of Transatlantic Friends of Israel (TFI) had likewise been set up two weeks earlier with MPs from the same parties.

Akel called the move “extremely provocative” and accused the three parties of turning parliament into a lobby for Israel.

Aipac is an American pro-Israel lobbying group that advocates policies strengthening the US-Israel relationship.

It was founded in 1954 as the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs by Isaiah L Kenen, a lobbyist for the Israeli government.

It is considered one of the most influential lobbying groups in the United States and reports more than five million members and 17 regional offices.

Critics have condemned Aipac as being an agent of the Israeli government and does not represent the diversity of views among American Jews.