Havana, February 22 (RHC) -- Cuba called on Tuesday to preserve international peace and security. It denounced the United States' efforts to impose NATO's progressive expansion towards the borders of the Russian Federation.
Such purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) constitutes a threat to that country's national security and regional and international peace, says a statement issued on Tuesday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean island.
The Foreign Ministry's note calls on the United States and its allies "to seriously and realistically address the well-founded demands for security guarantees from the Russian Federation, which has the right to defend itself." It also advocated a diplomatic solution through constructive and respectful dialogue to preserve international peace.
The U.S. government has for weeks been threatening Russia and manipulating the international community about the dangers of an "imminent massive invasion" of Ukraine, the text adds.
For that purpose, it notes, Washington supplied weapons and military technology, deployed troops in several countries in the region, applied unilateral and unjust sanctions, threatened other reprisals, and in parallel unleashed an anti-Russian propaganda campaign.
The Foreign Ministry statement recalls that Cuba had previously warned about the dangerousness of this policy, and in this regard cited the words pronounced on February 22, 2014, by the then President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Army General Raul Castro Ruz, who warned:
"Right now, alarming events are taking place in Ukraine. The intervention of Western powers must cease, and it should not be ignored that these events could have dire consequences for international peace and security".
Years later, on September 26, 2018, before the United Nations General Assembly, the President of the Republic Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, warned that "the continued expansion of NATO towards the borders with Russia causes serious dangers, aggravated by the imposition of arbitrary sanctions that we reject," the statement noted.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the decree recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the republics of the Donbas region outside Kyiv's control, a decision rejected by the Ukrainian authorities.
Putin also signed agreements on friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance with the leaders of both territories, Denis Pushilin (Donetsk) and Leonid Pasechnik (Lugansk), and assured that Moscow would help ensure peace in the area.
