CUBA | POMPEO to include Cuba among State sponsors of Terrorism again

However, according to the Associated Press (AP), it was not immediately clear from the remarks Pompeo made on Sunday about these plans whether all the technical criteria necessary to include Cuba are met, a measure that Cuban authorities reject and consider spurious and senseless.

By removing Cuba from the list, the Barack Obama administration (2009-2017) determined that the country no longer supported international terrorism but, according to what was said by officials to AP, Pompeo is now expected to mention Cuba's ties with Venezuela as a pretext for the measure.

Political leaders and experts on the subject note that this unjustified sanction is intended to complicate any efforts by President-elect Joe Biden to resume the thawing of ties with Havana as initiated by Obama.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel recently denounced the efforts being made by the United States to include Cuba in the above mentioned unilateral list, and described the measure as 'absurd', 'hypocritical' and 'unfair', as it comes from a government that welcomes groups of terrorists who act against Cuba.

Pompeo has few days until Biden takes the presidential seat on January 20 to decide whether Cuba should be designated as a State sponsor of terrorism, which was imposed on it for the first time in 1982, under the administration of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989).

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