Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio affirmed that as long as the United States Government grants asylum to hijackers of ships, it cannot be said today that its real purpose is to put an end to irregular emigration.
In an exclusive interview granted to Prensa Latina at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in this capital, Fernández de Cossío, while addressing current issues, rejected the recent political asylum granted to the Cuban citizen who last October "simply decided that his way of emigrating was to hijack a ship".
With this action -he said- the U.S. Government becomes an accomplice and participant in an act of hijacking.
It is something extremely serious that Cuba denounced and protested vigorously, because it violates the agreements established between the two countries, as well as Cuban laws, international law and civil aeronautics, stressed the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.
He recalled that history shows that the United States, far from responding "to its national priorities in migratory matters, what weighs for them are the priorities of political subversion against Cuba".
He said that the fundamental causes for "this very pronounced emigration of Cubans to the United States, including those who above all leave in an irregular way, are due to known reasons".
In this regard, he pointed to the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed more than six decades ago on the Caribbean nation, a policy "aimed at depressing the standard of living of the Cuban population" and eroding the capacity of its economy to function.
Some 300,000 Cubans left the country in the last year, according to Fernandez de Cossio these people "have no political conflict with our country" and added that "surely when they have the first opportunity they will return to Cuba".
He affirmed that a relationship will continue with these emigrants; "they are still children of this country, there is no conflict with them; however, the United States offers them political asylum or gives them privileged treatment for political purposes that are very divorced from the real reasons for which they emigrate".
Therefore, as long as the United States maintains a policy of economic war against Cuba, it is very difficult to think that the migratory potential is going to diminish, he said, insisting that the United States is also encouraging emigration because the Adjustment Act, a unique privilege for Cubans that will soon be 60 years old, continues to be in force and applied.
He pointed out that there is also a differentiated policy for Cubans that favors those who arrive at its borders, including those who arrive by sea, and this becomes an attraction for those who do not obtain a visa.
Regarding bilateral relations, Fernández de Cossío said that there is no real change because, for example, Title III of the Helms Burton Act, the inclusion of Cuba on the list of State sponsors of terrorism and on the list of restricted entities, as well as the persecution of fuel and medical cooperation from Cuba are maintained.
All these are policies that bear the seal of Donald Trump (2017-2021), since he was the one who implemented them, but they continue to be applied by the current U.S. government without even proposing to justify why it is doing this, the deputy minister assured.
He commented that the United States intends to ask Cuba for gestures and that it has to take a step, "an absolutely unreasonable demand or claim".
How is it going to correspond to Cuba, which has not taken a single hostile action against the United States to correct the current state of relations and many times that demand leads to specific requests such as that Cuba release prisoners, he added.
"All these are pretexts that the United States has historically used when it does not want to act; it makes unreasonable demands, demands that it knows have no basis whatsoever, when it has no will to act to improve relations with a country, in this case Cuba," he said.
Therefore, he considered that the current state of relations between Cuba and the United States is defined by the continuity of the policy of maximum pressure established by Trump.
However, he clarified that this does not mean that "we ignore that in 2022 both countries took some steps that have some importance in the bilateral relationship, but these are far from characterizing those ties".
As for the possibility that the current Democratic administration will immediately decide to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, Fernandez de Cossio was emphatic: "we have no evidence, no sign, no promise that this will happen".
But the reasons to remove Cuba from that list are evident because "the United States knows that Cuba does not sponsor terrorism, the government and its agencies, the State Department, Homeland Security, the President and even the small groups of congressmen who with certain frequency dishonestly allege that Cuba practices terrorism know that".
It is hard to believe -he pointed out- that such a powerful figure as the President of the United States is bound by the capricious opinions of a senator and that there could be a senator who tells him what he can or cannot do with respect to his prerogatives as chief executive of such a powerful nation at a global level.