“Would anyone logically think diaspora Cypriots could determine the result of the United States election?”, Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos asked on Tuesday in response to apparent suspicion in Cyprus’ media and social media regarding President Nikos Christodoulides’ invite to the White House.

Kombos was addressing claims that Christodoulides had been invited to meet incumbent US President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday, just six days before the country’s presidential elections, with the aim of inspiring diaspora Cypriots to turn out and vote for his party’s candidate Kamala Harris on November 5.

He was quick to rubbish the idea, saying, “in these elections, there are four, five, six, or a maximum of seven states which will determine the result. If you look at the number of Cypriots who live in those states, you will find that the number is very small.”

He then was keen to stress the unlikely nature of Cypriots or Cyprus being able to swing the results of the election one way or another.

“Some people need to stop their view that we are somehow the centre of the world,” he said.

He added that if Biden or his Democratic Party wished to sway the result of the election, “he would have invited the leader of some other country which has more citizens or a larger diaspora living in those swing states.”

Instead, he said, the invite was a “matter of recognition” of the changing and developing relationship between Cyprus and the US, and was keen to stress that the progress of that relationship does not hinge on the November 5 election, in which Harris will face the Republican Party’s candidate and former President Donald Trump.

“The US’ foreign policy regarding Cyprus has a state role,” he said, while also referencing the various moves made by Cyprus in recent months and years, including the opening of a “strategic discourse” between the two countries’ governments earlier this year.

He was also eager to point out that while the announcement of the meeting may have been made at a relatively late hour, and while final confirmation from the US government was not given until “the last few days”, the meeting is not a flash in the pan.

“This was not a firework which exploded at the last second. It is the result of a series of events and efforts and the commencement of that strategic discourse, and the humanitarian aid corridor to Gaza, and the evacuation of people from Sudan, among other things,” he said.

He also pointed out the rarity of meetings at the White House, noting that the last Cypriot president to receive such an invite was Glafcos Clerides, who was invited by then President Bill Clinton in 1996, and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last received an invite in 2019.

“They didn’t just wake up one morning and discover that the Republic of Cyprus is important,” he said, once again making reference to the efforts his ministry has made to make the meeting possible.

His comments come after Christodoulides had said the invitation was an indication that Cyprus has “been on the right side of history”.

In addition to the strategic discourse, the meeting comes a week after Cyprus became a signatory to the Artemis Accords, a set of principles and agreements established to govern international cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space.