President Nikos Christodoulides on Tuesday visited the United States navy’s nuclear submarine the USS Indiana, which had arrived in Limassol the previous day.

The ship’s arrival had been announced by US ambassador in Nicosia Julie Davis Fisher, who said on Twitter that the submarine had docked in Cyprus for “a liberty and New Year port call”.

She added that the submarine is named after the US state of Indiana, and that “its insignia honours Indiana’s racing heritage with the famous finish line racing flag”.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Fisher also announced the arrival of the US navy’s destroyer ship the USS Oscar Austin, which, she said, had also arrived in Limassol for a “New Years port call”.

The ship’s arrival is one of a growing number of US navy ships docking in Cyprus, with the USS The Sullivans having visited Larnaca earlier this month, and the USS Oak Hill having made multiple stops on the island earlier in the year, most recently at the end of October.

The USS Oak Hill had previously arrived in Cyprus to conduct scheduled maintenance, with commanding officer Jason Nowell saying at the time that the marines would conduct “routine bilateral training exercises” with Cyprus’ National Guard both in Paphos and Larnaca.

The Defence Visual Information Distribution Service said these exercises are “part of [the marines’] scheduled deployment”.

The USS Oak Hill had in August taken part in joint exercises with the USS Wasp and the Turkish navy’s amphibious assault ship the TCG Anadolu, and fellow Turkish navy ship the TCG Gokova.

The USS Wasp’s presence in Cyprus had also generated controversy on the island, with Akel accusing the Cypriot government of dragging Cyprus into the middle of extremely heightened tensions by consenting to the “continuing concentration of foreign military forces on our island”.

The USS Wasp’s official social media page at the time had said the exercises had taken place “in a demonstration of enduring cooperation and mutual commitment to maritime security”.

After those exercises had taken place, the USS Wasp docked in the Turkish Aegean city of Izmir, but this was met with controversy after two sailors from the ship were attacked by 15 people while walking down the city’s central Cyprus Martyrs Street.

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar said that “south Cyprus has become a military stopover point for countries which show at every opportunity they are party to the crisis and that they are complicit in the crimes against humanity being committed, and it has even started to use its civilian ports for military purposes.”

Meanwhile, Turkey’s defence ministry issued a warning to the Republic of Cyprus over military activities on the island.

“The recent increase in activity on the island of Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot Administration’s ongoing activities are being meticulously monitored,” they said,

Despite this, Cyprus’ Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas was resolute in his defence of the ship’s docking in Cyprus, speaking of his “sadness” at “some publications and also some political parties” which criticised the government’s handling of the situation.

 “There is nothing reprehensible, there is no fault, we are a recognised, democratic, modern state inside the international community, and we have every right, the inalienable right, to perform exercises for the purpose of being ready if and when issues arise,” he said.