Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, May 15 (ACN) The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) has issued the following statement:

“According to official U.S. media reports, on May 15, 2024, the U.S. Secretary of State submitted to Congress one more of the arbitrary reports that usually qualify countries without any international mandate or recognition. In this case, it lists four countries allegedly ‘not cooperating fully with U.S. counterterrorism efforts in calendar year 2023’. Among them, and unlike in recent years, Cuba is not slanderously mentioned.

However, the State Department itself maintains Cuba on a list designating States that allegedly ‘sponsor’ terrorism. This is an absolutely unilateral and unfounded list only intended to slander and serve as a pretext for the adoption of coercive economic measures against sovereign states, such as those ruthlessly applied against Cuba.

The demand that the U.S. government correct this injustice is loud and reiterated not only by the Cuban people and numerous governments, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, but also by political, social and religious organizations within the U.S. itself and by various politicians in that country.

The clear and absolute truth is that Cuba does not sponsor terrorism, but has been a victim of it, including State terrorism, as anyone interested in the subject can confirm, and a matter of which the United States government, its Department of State, and its intelligence and law enforcement agencies are well aware, as they are of the extraordinary damage caused to the Cuban economy by the measures, actions and the intimidating effect automatically caused on any State that appears on that list, regardless of the truth.

It is not enough to recognize that Cuba cooperates fully with the United States. It also does so with the international community as a whole. This is a known fact, and no attempt should be made to confuse public opinion. The President of the United States has every prerogative to act honestly and do the right thing.

Havana, May 15, 2024”