Riyadh, January 14th – A delegation headed by the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Cuba, Gerardo Peñalver Portal, paid an intense but fruitful working visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman from January 10th to 14th, 2025, as part of a regional tour that also included Qatar and Kuwait.
The stay in Saudi Arabia began with an interesting tour of Diriyah, an ancient city with great historical value, where the At-Turaif district is located, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as it is considered the birthplace of the Kingdom, ancestral home of the Al Saud family and capital of the first Saudi State.
Likewise, the First Deputy Minister had the opportunity to exchange by videoconference with several of the Cuban health collaborators under contract in different regions of Saudi Arabia, to inquire about their living and working conditions. The visiting delegation then had a pleasant meeting with representatives of the State Mission and the Cuban community living in Riyadh.
During the official part of the visit, the delegation was received at the headquarters of the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) by its executive president, Sultan bin Abdulrahman Al-Marshad, reviewing the high social impact in Cuba of the projects executed by this entity and the different actions to continue strengthening our mutually advantageous relations.
As a culmination of the stopover in the Kingdom, the Cuban executive was received by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, in an interesting and relaxed dialogue, where the positive level of bilateral relations was highlighted and the willingness to continue strengthening ties in areas of mutual interest was ratified.
On the other hand, the visit of barely 24 hours to the Sultanate began with a meeting between the First Deputy Minister and the Omani Minister of Health, Dr. Hilal bin Ali bin Hilal Al-Sabti, where the common will to develop cooperation in the field of health was ratified. Immediately afterwards, Peñalver Portal, accompanied by his delegation, made a brief tour of the National Museum of Oman, to learn about aspects of the history and culture of this Gulf nation.
The stay in Muscat was also the occasion to visit the headquarters of the Omani Investment Authority and hold a meeting with its vice president, Mulham Bashir Al-Jarf, which allowed to confirm the will of this Omani entity to strengthen ties with Cuba through the various planned projects.
The main segment of this visit was the celebration of the first round of the Inter-Chancellery Political Consultations, based on the memorandum of understanding signed for this purpose in December 2015 between the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Omani counterpart. The delegation of the Sultanate to these consultations was chaired by the Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Sheikh Khalifa Al-Harthy, and during the talks the positive state of the bilateral relationship was assessed and topics of common interest in the regional and international political arena were discussed.
As a final activity, the First Deputy Minister held a frank and pleasant exchange with representatives of the small Cuban community residing in Oman, most of them working in the cultural sector, who demonstrated their commitment to the homeland, despite being far from it. (EmbaCuba Arabia Saudita)