New York, 13 June 2017. Cuba participated today in the meeting summoned by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to the United Nations with the presence of Ambassador Elayne White Gómez, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations based in Geneva and Chair of the United Nations Conference to negotiate a legal binding instrument prohibiting nuclear weapons and conducting to its total elimination.
Within this framework, Ambassador Ana Silvia Rodríguez Abascal, Deputy Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations emphasized it is high time to abandon, once and for all, the attempts to legitimize the possession of nuclear weapons, the nuclear deterrence policy and the continued modernization of such weapons.
She welcomed the draft submitted of the Convention for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and noted that for Cuba an ambiguous Convention leaving room for interpretations as to the norm for the prohibition of nuclear weapons, under any circumstance, would be unacceptable. As a priority element for Cuba, she insisted upon the fact that the Convention shall clearly reflect that prohibition is not an end in itself, but a step in the required process towards total elimination and destruction of nuclear weapons; in an irreversible, transparent and nondiscriminatory manner, within a given time-frame and under strict international verification.
The Cuban representative made sure that during the negotiations, the Cuban delegation will submit specific proposals for amendments on these and other issues, moved by the interest to adopt the best possible Convention next 7 July.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations