“The relationship between Cuba and Belarus is of long standing. Beyond the establishment of bilateral ties in April 1992, they are deep, historical ties, which have to do with friendship and the feeling of respect and affection forged between our peoples for many decades.”
Alejandro Simancas Marin, Deputy Director of the General Directorate of Bilateral Affairs of MINREX, agreed to talk to the press group of the Presidency about the significance of the visit of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, to Minsk.
The Head of State will carry out an intense work agenda, during which he will pay an official visit to the Republic of Belarus and participate in the Supreme Council of the Eurasian Economic Union, an integrationist bloc shared by Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Belarus, which holds the pro tempore presidency of the mechanism.
-This is the second official visit of the Cuban President to the Republic of Belarus. The first one was in October 2019. How much progress has been made in political, diplomatic and economic terms and how do you rate the current state of mutual ties?
-Cuba and Belarus have a growing and excellent relationship. Both governments share the will to strengthen it, expand it, diversify it as much as possible. They maintain a political dialogue at the highest level, with shared values and common positions in the international order, and seek to consolidate ties in cardinal areas such as trade, economic and financial exchange.
“During President Díaz-Canel’s visit to Belarus in October 2019, several documents and a Joint Declaration were signed, which reflected the will to deepen those relations.
“Since then we have maintained a dialogue at the highest level, such as the visit to Havana in July 2023 of the then Foreign Minister Serguei Aléinik, and, in that same year, the stay of Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz in Minsk, a fundamental visit in which the bonds of friendship and the will to continue strengthening our ties were reaffirmed.
“At the stage, the foundations of the Joint Declaration signed during the visit of our President in 2019 to Minsk were consolidated. In 2024, the bilateral economic agenda, which we are working on and which outlines the essential points of cooperation and economic and trade relations until 2030, was initialed, and a road map identifying its substantial elements is developed.
“We have the mechanism of the intergovernmental commissions, which has worked very positively and has proven to be very fruitful in continuing to boost exchanges for mutual benefit. Its most recent session, the 12th, was in May, during the visit of Vice-Chancellor Evgueni Shestakov. It is a commission made up of four working groups that define the fundamental areas and which we intend to continue to strengthen.
We have also consolidated the political dialogue at the highest level, including the mechanism of inter-foreign political consultations, whose last session was held in May in Havana and where we outlined areas of cooperation. These are exchanges that yield benefits on issues of bilateral interest, regional and international affairs.
“We must highlight here the position of solidarity that Belarus has always had in rejecting the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against our country. It has always maintained a sustained position of rejection of this policy, as in the demand for the exclusion of Cuba from the infamous list of alleged sponsors of terrorism drawn up by the U.S. State Department.
(Taken from Granma)
