Cyprus Still Divided

In the summer of 1974, while the U.S. passively stood by, Turkey launched a brutal invation of the Republic of Cyprus, using U.S.-supplied arms and equipment to grab nearly 40% of Cyprus' sovereign territory and force 170,000 Greek-Cypriots from their homes and property.

Cyprus remains divided to this day. The Turkish army occupies the northern third of the island in violation of international law, and Turkey has illegally settled that land with more than 180,000 Turks from Anatolia. Successive U.S. administrations have acknowledged these actions to be illegal but the U.S. has yet to rectify the situation.


Why did Washington fail to prevent the invasion and the subsequent settlements despite having the knowledge and power to act? The answer lies in a tangled web of domestic politics, the realpolitik of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the repeated refusal of American presidents to demand that the rule of law and fundamental human rights be upheld in Cyprus.
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