HAVANA.- In recent months, the U.S. State Department has been generating a new pretext to affect bilateral diplomatic relations, related to the process of granting diplomatic and official visas required by the personnel of the respective Embassies in Washington and Havana to carry out their functions.
The maneuver consists in claiming that Cuba obstructs the granting of visas for the designated officials in the United States Embassy in Cuba, which supposedly hinders the performance of that Diplomatic Mission.
In doing so, the State Department deliberately masks the fact that it was the government of the United States that unilaterally decided to reduce the personnel of its Embassy in Havana in September 2017, including in particular the personnel in charge of consular services, with the consequent affectation to Cuban and U.S. citizens who depend on those services. It was the US who decided to arbitrarily and unjustly expel 15 Cuban diplomatic officials from the Cuban Embassy in Washington in October of that year.
Since that date, the functioning of both Missions has been affected by these unilateral decisions. Likewise, the granting of the visas required for the personnel of the respective Embassies has been subject to approvals and capricious delays by the State Department.
The data speaks for itself. Since late September 2017, the U.S. government has issued only 26 visas and denied 6 for personnel required by Cuba at its Embassy in Washington. In the same period, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued 105 visas for temporary and permanent diplomatic and administrative personnel of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, and has only denied one in reciprocity to the action of the State Department. This is clearly unbalanced behavior that is alien to the rules of reciprocity that are essential practice in diplomatic relations.
To accuse Cuba of generating an unsustainable situation for the functioning of the United States Embassy constitutes a flagrant distortion of the truth.
The Cuban government is not responsible for the instability and irregularity unilaterally generated by the government of the United States for the operation of the Diplomatic Missions of both countries in their respective capitals.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains the spirit of facilitating the requirements of each party for the respective functioning of the Embassies on the basis of reciprocity.
Havana, 28 November 2018
"Year 60 of the Revolution."