Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel "firmly and absolutely" rejected the U.S. re-designation of his country as a sponsor of terrorism, a measure that "exposes Washington's double standards in this matter."
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"To claim that Cuba sponsors terrorism is Donald Trump administration's height of cynicism. The blockade that it imposes and strengthens against Cuba is in itself State terrorism," Diaz-Canel pointed out.
On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo justified his country's decision by arguing that the Cuban government protects guerrillas from Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN).
The inclusion of Cuba in the U.S. blacklist is just an opportunistic action which "is recognized by all who have an honest concern for the scourge of terrorism and its victims," Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez assured.
According to experts, the case of Cuban expatriate and terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is an example of the U.S. double standards.
Posada, who passed away in 2018, was the intellectual author of the bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner over Barbados in October 1976, in which all 73 people aboard died.
The U.S. protected him and prevented his extradition to Venezuela, where he would have been tried for this and other acts of terror.
Cuba's Foreign Affairs policy "is well known. We maintain an unimpeachable conduct and reject terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, particularly State terrorism," Rodriguez emphasized.