WASHINGTON, DC (AHI) — Maryland Public Television will air the one-hour documentary, “Cyprus Still Divided: A U.S. Foreign Policy Failure,” Mon., Oct. 17, 2011, 10 p.m. (visit http://www.mpt.org/coverage to identify the MPT channel in your area). MPT is available to viewers in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and northern Virginia.

“We appreciate Maryland Public Television for airing this important documentary that scrutinizes the United States’ foreign policy perspective of the Cyprus issue,” AHI President Nick Larigakis said. “We strongly encourage the communities of Maryland, Washington, DC and northern Virginia to tune-in to watch. We are confident viewers will find it informative and insightful as we continue to seek justice for Cyprus 37 years later.”

“Cyprus Still Divided” finally reveals the web of domestic politics, the realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, and repeated refusal of successive U.S. presidents to demand that the rule of law and fundamental human rights be upheld in Cyprus. For example, the documentary presents a recently declassified 1974 White House memorandum of conversation that clearly indicts Secretary of State Kissinger, who said to President Ford, “There is no American reason why the Turks should not have one-third of Cyprus.”

“Newly-released information about U.S. policy toward Cyprus, such as the declassified White House memorandum, sheds new light on the 37-year-old issue and the public must be made aware,” said Larigakis. “The documentary accomplishes this task by presenting the facts in a clear and concise manner.”

“Cyprus Still Divided” also looks to the future of the divided island in the context of the ongoing settlement negotiations between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Cypriot community that began in September 2008. The documentary says: “By abandoning the rule of law and its principles, the United States had a role in causing the present division of Cyprus. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. can perform a role in reunifying Cyprus.”

The documentary was produced by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, George Veras and was made possible by the support of the American Hellenic Institute Foundation. It originally aired on Detroit Public Television, September 13, 2010.

Excerpts from “Cyprus Still Divided: A U.S. Foreign Policy Failure”

Journalist Christopher Hitchens on Kissinger: “It’s difficult to encapsulate the wickedness of Kissinger’s role in a sentence but if you wanted to try for a epigram it would be: ‘To support the Greeks as long as they were fascists and to turn against them only when they were democrats, to support the Turks only when they were aggressors and to end up with a country ruined and partitioned’ which, I have to believe, was, in fact, the objective of the policy in the first place.”

Thomas Boyatt, State Department foreign service officer who was head of the Cyprus desk operation shortly after the Turkish invasion said: “I recommended to Dr. Kissinger that he use his considerable influence to keep the Turkish army in the enclave where they were originally before they drove to both coasts and we, obviously, did not bring enough pressure to achieve that because they did break out of the Kyrenian pocket and their tanks went to both coasts, dividing the island in half.”

DVD is available for purchase at $24.95 plus $3.50 for shipping and handling from pr@ahiworld.org.

For additional information, please contact Demetra Atsaloglou at pr@ahiworld.org. For general information about the activities of AHI, please see our website at http://www.ahiworld.org.