LatinNews Daily - 20 May 2024

Cuba: On 16 May Cuba’s foreign ministry (Minrex) issued a statement saying the US should remove Cuba “once and for all” from its list of ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’. The previous day Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez posted on social media also calling for Cuba’s removal from the list and for the US to “stop applying the coercive economic measures that accompany this unjust designation”.  These statements come as a State Department official confirmed on 16 May that the US had removed Cuba from a short list of nations considered as ‘not fully cooperating’ (NFCC) in counterterrorism efforts and endeavours. In a press briefing, a spokesperson for the US Department of State, Vedant Patel, explained that the NFCC certification was “a totally separate process” from the designation of a state sponsor of terrorism, saying that “US law establishes specific statutory criteria for rescinding any state sponsor of terrorism designation, and any review of Cuba’s status on this would need to be based on the law and the criteria established by congress”. Regarding the decision to remove Cuba’s NFCC certification, Patel stated that the US State Department “determined that the circumstances for Cuba’s certifications as not fully cooperating country have changed from 2022 to 2023”, noting the resumption of law enforcement cooperation between the US and Cuba in 2023, “including on counterterrorism”. There are currently four countries on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list: Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

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