Russia and Cuba strengthen their “strategic partnership”
HAVANA, 29 Dec. Cuban Presidents Miguel Díaz-Canel and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone and want to strengthen their “strategic partnership” in 2023, according to an official Cuban statement released Thursday. “The two leaders discussed joint and mutually beneficial projects in energy and industry.
They also expressed their common will to continue consolidating the strategic partnership between the two countries,” said the statement published in the state daily “Granma”.
During the conversation, which took place on Wednesday, “we reviewed the excellent results of our recent visit to Russia and ratified the common will to deepen political dialogue and economic, trade, financial and cooperation ties” , said Mr. Díaz-Canel on his Twitter account.
International tour
The Cuban president, whose country is facing the worst economic crisis for thirty years, went to Russia at the end of November, during an international tour which also took him to Algeria, Turkey, and China.
At the end of the tour, Díaz-Canel said he had signed several oil supply agreements with Russia and Algeria, with a view to stabilizing electricity production and reviving the economy. Since May, Cuba has suffered from a chronic deficit in electricity production leading to regular power cuts in the country, including in the capital.
But the situation has stabilized since the second half of December, with much rarer cuts. The Russian government also recently granted the communist island a donation of 25,000 tons of wheat, according to “Granma”.
American embargo weighing
In parallel, the Cuban president received, Wednesday in Havana, the American democratic senator Ron Wyden, in favor of the repeal of the embargo and the sanctions imposed by Washington against Cuba.
“I received US Senator Ron Wyden, to whom I expressed my willingness to work together to improve bilateral relations for the benefit of our peoples,” said the Head of State on Twitter, adding that he had detailed “the impact on the Cuban population of the extreme measures of the United States government”.
In 2021, Senator Wyden and other Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill to end the US embargo against Cuba, which has been in place since 1962.
