MIAMI, United States. – The president of the United States, Joe Biden, is considering inviting a representative of the Cuban regime to the IX Summit of the Americas, according to a US official quoted by the news agency on Friday. AP.
The official, who declined to be identified, suggested that the Biden administration was trying to prevent a boycott of the event, which has been joined by the presidents of Mexico and Bolivia.
The source also specified that it was not clear whether the Government of Cuba would accept the invitation that, in any case, would be extended to an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) and not to the Cuban ruler, Miguel Díaz-Canel, nor to the foreign minister of the Island, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.
The invited representative of Cuba would participate in the Summit only as an observer.
The IX Summit of the Americas, which is scheduled to be held in two weeks in the city of Los Angeles, has come up against the reluctance of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to participate, if the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are excluded. , which much of the hemisphere regards as undemocratic regimes.
Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters this week that the administration was having “candid and constructive discussions” about the Summit guest list, but offered no other details.
For his part, Cuban-American senator Marco Rubio it was pronounced this Friday after learning that the White House would be considering inviting the Cuban regime to one of the most important hemispheric events.
“If the Cuban dictatorship is allowed to attend the Summit of the Americas, and if President Biden continues lifting sanctions against the regime and his military enablers, the Cuban dictator Díaz-Canel would receive a major international boost and could strengthen his brutal control over the Cuban people. That is not something that Americans want to be complicit in,” Rubio said.
Later, he added that “allowing despots to send representatives to the Summit of the Americas would also be a slap in the face to the hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans who are owed billions of dollars in uncompensated property claims and to the many who have risked their lives in search of freedom.”
It would also “show our regional allies that the Biden Administration is willing to ignore human rights violators and dictators who undermine democracy and the rule of law.”
“Ultimately, making concessions to authoritarians in our hemisphere only empowers dictators around the world. (…) I urge President Biden not to allow history to repeat itself and to stand firm against the brutal dictators of our hemisphere,” concluded the Republican senator.
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