Removal of Cuba from List of State Sponsors of Terrorism Confirmed

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 5 (acn) The US government confirmed on Thursday the removal of Cuba from the list of alleged state sponsors of international terrorism, with the publication of the decision in the Federal Register, the official newspaper of the U.S. government, reported Prensa Latina.

A note by the State Department pointed out on May 29 that the 45-day notice to Congress expired on that day.
Therefore, the Secretary of State, John Kerry, made the final decision of terminating the measure, effective starting from that day, although its publication in the Federal Register was pending.
The list drawn up unilaterally by Washington included Cuba since 1982.
The note published on Thursday points out that the United States maintains concerns and differences with Havana, but that there are no relevant criteria to maintain that policy, and the action reflects the U.S. conviction that Cuba meets the criteria for its exclusion from the list.
On December 17, 2014, presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced the beginning of a dialogue to restore diplomatic relations, broken by Washington in 1961.
Since the beginning of bilateral talks in January, Cuba reiterated that the exclusion of the island from that list was a matter of elementary justice, because it should have never been there.
For the Cuban government, the normalization of ties with the United States will go in the first place through the lifting of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, the return of the territory occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base, the cessation of illegal radio and television broadcasts, and compensation for damages caused by the economic war.