HAVANA.- Miguel Diaz Canel, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, highlighted this Wednesday, in the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Latin American and the Caribbean position against the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons.
In his speech, the Cuban leader stressed that it is cause for rejoicing for Latin America and the Caribbean to have been the first densely populated area in the world that was declared a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, through the Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967).
This will of our countries was ratified in the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, a document signed by the Heads of State and Government of the region at the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), held in Havana in January 2014, he said.
He said that Cuba maintains a firm commitment to strengthening and consolidating multilateralism and international treaties on disarmament, particularly with the goal of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.
An example of this, he said, was the ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, on January 31, 2018.
Cuba rejects security policies and military doctrines based on nuclear deterrence, the president said.
Diaz-Canel assured that Cuba will persist in the objective that this Treaty - which proscribes the use, existence and development of nuclear weapons and endorses that these are inhuman, immoral, and ethically indefensible - is once implemented and complemented with effective measures that lead to the total elimination of those arsenals in an effective, transparent and irreversible manner.
In addition, he rejected the decision of the United States government to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (PAIC) or Nuclear Agreement with Iran.
Failure to comply with these international commitments violates the rules of coexistence between States and will have serious consequences for stability and security in the Middle East, he warned.
The Cuban President considered it an unavoidable duty to join the commemoration every September 26 of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, which contributes to the objective of the United Nations to preserve international peace and security.
He noted the pride that such an achievement is sustained in an initiative promoted by the Non-Aligned Movement that the international community endorsed.
For Cuba, this annual convocation represents, in addition, a fair tribute to the memory of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, who was a tireless fighter in favor of nuclear disarmament, a subject to which he dedicated numerous Reflections and all his energies, Diaz-Canel said.
He said that more than 70 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity continues to be threatened by the existence of approximately 14,400 nuclear weapons, of which 3,750 are deployed and almost 2,000 are kept operationally alert. .
Díaz- Canel concluded his speech with a fragment of the speech of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, Army General Raul Castro Ruz, during the Rio +20 Summit: "Let us leave the justifications and selfishness and look for solutions. This time, everyone, absolutely everyone, will pay the consequences (...) Cease the dispossession, stop the war, move towards disarmament and destroy the nuclear arsenals. "