Cuba has never sought to change its principles: diplomat

November 5, 2017 - 10:25

TEHRAN - The third secretary of Cuban embassy in Tehran has said that even during Raul Castro’s presidency Havana has never been seeking to change its basic principles or policies towards the United States.

“Changes in the U.S.-Cuba ties were proposed by the Obama administration [former U.S. president] and not Cuba. We have never sought to make changes in our preliminary principles,” Junior Penalvar Quevedo told Tehran Times.

Criticizing the Trump administration’s policy toward Cuba, he said, “It was not possible to discuss normalization of ties between the U.S. and Cuba except during Obama’s presidency which happened to be the time that Raul Castro took power.” 

A remarkable step was taken during Obama’s time to normalize relations, he said; however, he added the situation has changed since Trump came to power.

“Now, Donald Trump says that the U.S. is not interested in developing ties and needs to stop relations with Cuba.”

Quevedo said, “Cuba does not have problem with the U.S. and is open to hold dialogue with the U.S., but now is not a good time because Trump has changed the U.S. policy towards Cuba”.

He also said that the Trump administration has claimed that “sonic attacks” have been carried out against the U.S. diplomats in Cuba but no evidence of such attacks has been found.
However, he said, Cuba has expressed readiness to investigate the issue. 

“On October 3, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla said that Cuba is ready to cooperate in order to shed light on the issue, but the U.S. does not want to cooperate in this respect,” the Cuban diplomat explained.

Elsewhere, Quevedo said that Cuba has facilitated obtaining nationality for Cuban children who were born in the U.S.

This policy sends this message to the world that Cubans seek to be together no matter where they live, he said.

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