A special statement released by the organization considered the publication of that list by the US Department of State as a practice totally incompatible with the UN Charter and international law.
The text considered Cuba’s removal from the list of countries that do not fully cooperate to fight terrorism, and demanded its total removal from that arbitrary, illegitimate and unilateral list. This action does not correct the unjust, unfounded and slanderous accusation against the Republic of Cuba on the US Department of State’s SSOT list.
In that regard, the statement warned about the reinforcing effects of the economic, commercial and financial blockade by the United States, which has been further aggravated by that designation.
The Group insisted on the need to end these measures while reaffirming its solidarity with the Cuban people.
In late May, the State Department confirmed Cuba’s removal from the list of countries that, according to the United States, “do not fully cooperate” in the fight against terrorism.
However, both the international community and the Cuban Government consider the provision insufficient, as it is not equivalent to the country’s elimination from the SSOT list, with serious limitations for the Caribbean island’s economic and commercial relations.
Cuba was first included on the SSOT list during President Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1982.
In 2015, then President Barack Obama considered that this designation had no merit in the case of Cuba and remove it.
Four years later, Donald Trump reinstated the nation shortly before the end of his term, something that his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, maintains, despite the demands for him to rectify that position in his policy on Cuba.
The Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter was founded in 2021 and currently has 18 UN members, including Angola, Cuba, China, Nicaragua, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Korea, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the State of Palestine.
Since its foundation, it has been coordinated by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
jg/mem/ebr
