the president of Costa RicaRodrigo Chaves, announced this Thursday the termination of a memorandum of cooperation in educational matters that the country had in force with Cuba since 2019.
“We made this decision after analyzing the current situation in our education system and the reforms that are needed to move the country forward after the educational blackout in recent years,” Chaves said in a brief press release cited by Efe.
According to the Costa Rican government, which gave no further reasons for this decision, the termination has “immediate effects” but, underlines the Spanish agency, it will not affect any other joint project that is underway.
The cooperation memorandum had been signed on April 29, 2019 between the then Minister of Education of Costa Rica, Edgar Mora, and the Cuban ambassador in San José, Danilo Sánchez.
The document was signed in the framework of a visit to Costa Rica by the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, the first by a foreign minister from the island in the last 50 years.
The agreement was intended to “promote and develop cooperation in areas of common educational interest based on the principles of reciprocity and mutual benefit,” according to official information.
Costa Rica broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, but ties were reestablished on March 18, 2009 by the then president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Óscar Arias.
Efe/OnCuba.
