(EFE).- The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, decreed this Monday official mourning for the death of the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who died at the age of 73 on May 13. .
During the duration of the duel -decreed from 06:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on May 17- the Cuban flag must be raised at half-staff in public buildings and military institutions, specified the statement released by official media. the island.
On the same day of the death of President Khalifa, the Government of Cuba sent its condolences to the people and Government of the UAE.
Khalifa ruled the Emirates since 2004, but a stroke in 2014 forced him to withdraw from the public scene and, since then, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi had taken the reins of the Persian Gulf country.
Cuba and the UAE established diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level in 2002.
In 2015, the UAE Foreign Minister, Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, opened his country’s embassy in Cuba and signed an air services agreement with the country, official media reported.
That same year both nations held their first bilateral business forum in Dubai with the assistance of the Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca.
The decision to decree mourning three days after his death contrasts with the slowness in doing so with the victims of the Saratoga Hotel explosion. Cuba has taken this measure with the deaths of several leaders, to whom less than a day of mourning is usually dedicated, one of the most recent being the Algerian Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in September 2021.
Some exceptions, in addition to the prolonged mourning for Fidel Castro, which lasted nine days, have been Nelson Mandela or Francisco Franco, for whose deaths Cuba spent three days in mourning.
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