BIS conforming and clarifying EAR amendments: Cyprus removed from Country Group D:5 (arms embargo); destination renames (Eswatini, North Macedonia, Türkiye)

Mechanism

The rule makes multiple narrow textual changes to 15 CFR Parts 738, 740, 742, 744, 746, 748 and 772:

• Cyprus removed from Country Group D:5 (Supplement No. 1 to Part 740).

Country Group D:5 enumerates destinations subject to a US arms embargo, triggering heightened license requirements across NS, RS, MT and CB reasons for control and disqualifying destinations from a wide range of EAR license exceptions. The Department of State had already suspended the Cyprus arms embargo for defence articles and services for the Government of Cyprus (initial partial lift in FY2021; permanent suspension announced in 2022); this BIS rule conforms the EAR baseline to the State action by removing Cyprus from D:5 outright. Cyprus continues to be listed in Country Group A:5 (Wassenaar) and is not subject to the EAR's military end-use or military-intelligence end-user controls of §§744.21–744.22.

• Destination name standardisation. Swaziland is renamed to

Eswatini, "Macedonia (The Former Yugoslav Republic of)" to "North Macedonia", and Turkey to Türkiye throughout the EAR — bringing EAR terminology into line with destination names already recognised by the US Government in other contexts (State Department country lists, ISO 3166).

• Australia/UK license-requirement corrections. A prior rulemaking

had inadvertently listed certain National Security (NS1), Regional Stability (RS1) and Missile Technology (MT1) reasons-for-control as applicable to Australia and the UK in the Commerce Country Chart; these designations are removed as erroneous.

• Obsolete footnote and redundant-reference cleanup. Footnote 3

designations no longer in operative use are stripped, and standalone references to "Russia" and "Russian Federation" in provisions that also reference Country Group D:5 are removed — D:5 already covers Russia and Belarus, so the standalone language was redundant.

Downstream implications

• For Cyprus-incorporated companies and US exporters with Cyprus

customers, the D:5 removal narrows the universe of items needing a BIS export licence and expands eligibility for EAR licence exceptions (notably exceptions that are blocked for D:5 destinations). Operational impact is modest because the State Department arms-embargo suspension had already governed defence articles since 2022; this rule aligns the dual-use perimeter.

• The Russia/Belarus reference cleanup has no operational effect — D:5

designation continues to govern. The change is purely textual hygiene.

• The destination-name standardisations are symbolic but matter for

automated EAR-screening tools that hash on country strings: vendors need to update their EAR country tables to recognise "Eswatini", "North Macedonia" and "Türkiye" as the canonical EAR forms.

Severity rating

Rated 2 (qual): the rule's only operationally novel measure is the Cyprus D:5 removal, and that codifies prior State Department action rather than introducing new policy. All other changes are administrative cleanup with no change in licence requirements.

Open questions

• Whether subsequent EAR conforming rules in 2025–2026 (e.g., the

Cambodia D:5 removal of February 2026) form part of a broader pattern of US arms-embargo rebalancing for non-treaty partners or whether each is being handled as a one-off codification of a separate State Department action.

• Whether Cyprus's removal from D:5 affects its eligibility for any

US/EU defence-industrial-cooperation Strategic Compass tracks (EDF, PESCO interop with US suppliers) — outside the scope of this rule but a watch item.