Havana, November 5 (RHC-acn) -- Cuban and U.S. religious leaders expressed their commitment to continue working for the normalization of relations between the two countries, and the return home of three Cuban antiterrorist fighters imprisoned in U.S. jails.

About to wrap up its visit to the island, the delegation headed by the Rev. John McCullough, president and executive director of Church World Service (CWS), announced the release of a joint statement with the Council of Churches of Cuba (CCC).

The joint statement also calls for a solution to the case of Alan Gross, a U.S. citizen arrested, tried and sentenced in Cuba to 15 years in prison for subversive activities.

The opposition of Rev. McCullough to the illegal, irrational and genocidal blockade of the U.S. government against the Caribbean nation is well-known, a position shared by his fellow travelers, Reverend Gradye Parsons, president of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and Rabbi Schnitzer Elhanam, Executive Director of the Jewish Mission to Cuba.

They also defend the right of their citizens to travel freely to the island and, in the case of McCullough, was one of the promoters of the letter sent to President Barack Obama by American religious leaders to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The President of Church World Service also inaugurated the conference of Solidarity with the Five in Washington, DC in the last two years and recently visited one of the Cuban Five -- Antonio Guerrero in Marianna federal prison in the state of Florida, where he is serving an unjust sentence.