Havana, May 23 (IANS) Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has accused the United States of using “empty rhetoric” to label the island country as a “sponsor of terrorism” without evidence, saying Washington is promoting a narrative in the media to justify military aggression.
In a post on X on Friday (local time), Diaz-Canel said claims that Cuba represents a threat to the United States “can only exist in the sick minds” of some officials in the current US administration, reports Xinhua news agency.
He said those officials have hijacked Washington’s Cuba policy and are lying to the American people and the world to justify “a new irrational war with a high potential cost in human lives for both countries.”
Diaz-Canel said Cuba has sought to live in peace since the triumph of its Revolution, while successive US administrations have threatened that right “time and again.”
“Now they do so at extreme levels, combining absurd lies with military intimidation and deprivation of the Cuban people of the most basic resources and services for their daily survival,” said the president.
The United States, as a country “that has harboured the most infamous terrorists of this continent,” is labelling Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism “without presenting a single piece of evidence and in the face of majority repudiation from the international community,” he said.
The president stressed that Cuba, as a nation of peace, “neither threatens, challenges, nor provokes” the United States or any other country.
He reiterated that Cuba has the right to legitimate self-defence under international law, while reaffirming Havana’s commitment to “reason, dialogue and peace.”
The United States has recently indicted Cuban Revolution leader Raul Castro in connection with the Cuban military’s fatal downing of two planes 30 years ago, and sent the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group to the Caribbean, moves seen as part of a broader pressure campaign against Cuba.
Diaz-Canel has warned that any US military attack on Cuba would cause “a bloodbath with incalculable consequences” and a devastating impact on peace and stability in Latin America and the Caribbean.
–IANS
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