A special statement released by the organization considered the issuance of this list by the North American State Department as a practice totally incompatible with the UN Charter and international law.
The text considered the island’s departure from among the nations that supposedly do not cooperate enough to combat terrorism insufficient and demanded its total withdrawal within those arbitrary, illegitimate and unilateral qualifications. This action does not correct the unjust, unfounded and slanderous accusation against the Republic of Cuba in the United States Department of State’s unilateral list of “terrorist sponsoring” countries.
In that sense, the statement warned about the reinforcing effects of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States, further aggravated by the designation.
The Group insisted on the need to end these measures while reaffirming its solidarity with the Cuban people.
At the end of May, the State Department confirmed the elimination of Cuba from the list that includes countries that, according to the United States, “do not fully cooperate” in the fight against terrorism.
However, both the international community and the Cuban Government consider the provision insufficient, which is not equivalent to the elimination of the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, with serious limitations for the economic and commercial exchange of the Caribbean country.
Cuba was first placed on the State Department’s list of sponsors of terrorism during President Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1982.
In 2015, then-president Barack Obama considered that this designation had no merit in the case of the island and withdrew it.
Four years later, Donald Trump re-included the nation shortly before the end of his term, something that his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, maintains, despite the demand that he rectify that position in his policy towards the Caribbean nation.
The Group of Friends in Defense of the United Nations Charter was founded in 2021 and currently has 18 UN members, including Angola, Cuba, China, Nicaragua, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Korea, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the State of Palestine.
Since its foundation, it is coordinated by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
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