Cuba protests the presence of a nuclear submarine
HAVANA, July 12. The Cuban government expressed on Tuesday its “categorical rejection” of the “provocative” presence last week of a propulsion submarineUS nuclear facility at the US Guantánamo naval base in the eastern part of the island.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry “categorically rejects the entry into Guantanamo Bay, on July 5, 2023, of a nuclear-powered submarine that remained until July 8 at the US military base,” the agency said in a statement.
The ministry considered it is a “provocative escalation by the United States, whose political or strategic motives are unknown.”
He also warned about the “danger posed by the presence and circulation of nuclear submarines” near the Caribbean region.
Asked this Tuesday in Washington about Cuba’s complaint, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller limited himself to reiterating a position expressed Monday on the subject by the Pentagon: “we will continue to fly and navigate and move military assets where it is appropriate to do so under international law”.
The complaint comes after the political rapprochement between Havana and Moscow in recent months, and a recent announcement to develop joint projects in various fields, including the “technical-military field.”
It also comes after Washington said that China had been operating an espionage unit in Cuba for years and that it updated it in 2019, which was denied by the island’s government.
Precisely, this Tuesday the training ship Perekop, from the Russian navy, arrived at the port of Havana for “an official visit” that will last until next Thursday, according to Cuban television.
In October 1962, the world experienced a moment of maximum tension, after the United States denounced the presence of atomic missiles in Cuba, installed by the Soviet Union.
Washington then imposed a total blockade against the island, which resulted in severe economic sanctions, in force to this day.
Cuba has repeatedly demanded the return of the 117 kilometers where the base is located, taken by the United States since 1898, after its war of independence against Spain.
Since 2002, the United States has used the Guantanamo base as a prison for detainees from the “war on terror” that followed the September 2001 attacks.
