New Cuba envoy invites Modi to Caribbean nation
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already been invited to visit Cuba and the invitation is “open and on the table”, new Cuban ambassador Alejandro Simancas Marin has said in an exclusive interview to this newspaper, adding that if PM Modi’s visit takes place, the island Caribbean nation will accord a warm welcome to the head of government of a country that has been a close and historic friend of Cuba for decades. The new Cuban envoy had presented his credentials to President Ram Nath Kovind just last week.
While India has a historic friendship spanning several decades with Cuba beginning from the Nehruvian era, ties between Cuba and its arch-foe for decades the United States continue to nosedive at a time when India is now a close strategic partner of the US. Asked whether the Cuba’s ties with the US would improve under the Biden Administration, Mr Marin told this newspaper that ït is “difficult to be optimistic”.
The Cuban envoy said US President Joe Biden had not reversed any of the hostile measures taken against Cuba including sanctions by
the previous Trump Adminstration. “Cuba had offered a normal relationship to the United States based on selfrespect,” Mr. Marin pointed out.
Stating that India and Cuba are engaged in a positive dialogue at different levels for close cooperation in areas such as health, bio-technology and education, the Cuban Ambassador also suggested a close cooperation between the two countries in the field of Covid vaccines. Cuba has a globallyacknowledged extremely efficient health system and the small nation has developed as many as five indigenous Covid vaccines, three of which have already been certified for use. Äs many as 95 percent of Cubans have been vaccinated,” Mr. Marin said. India too has an indigenously developed vaccine —Covaxin — apart from the indigenous manufacture of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine as Covishield.