The Minister of Defense of Canada, Bill Blairsaid he approved the decision to send a Canadian warship to the port of Havana, coinciding with the Russian navy this week.
“This was the direct result of a request made to me by the commander of the joint operations command and the admiral in charge of the Royal Canadian Navy,” Blair said in an interview replicated by the Canadian media. CBCNews.
He Harry DeWolf ship HMCS Margaret Brooke arrived at the Port of Havana last Friday, June 14 and returned to Canadian waters last Monday the 17th.
According to the minister, “the port visit was carefully planned at the request of Canada and was announced in advance by the military.”
As It did not happen with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the North American country, Mélanie JolyBlair said he was aware of the presence of Russian warships in Havana when he authorized the navy to send the HMCS Margaret Brooke into its waters.
Minister Joly declared that she did not know the reasons for the warship’s visit in an interview with a Canadian media..
To the question: Why would Canada have a ship in a Cuban port at the same time that the Russian military ships are there?, to which she responded that she was not aware of the situation.
“This is something that I have to look at much closer. It is information that is new news for me because the Minister of Defense also works with CAF and DND on this same issue; but of course we are going to look at it and come back,” he stated.
However, the Caribbean Minister of Defense said that “the Canadian ship visited Havana to demonstrate Canada’s presence, naval capacity and commitment to open and safe waters in the Americas.”
“This was a military mission. They asked me for permission to do it and I gave it to them,” he said.
The confluence of ships from Canada, Russia and the United States in Cuba, just 160 kilometers from Florida, has evoked memories of the Cold War and highlights current tensions between Russia and Western countries due to the war in Ukraine.
