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HAVANA, Cuba (ACN) -- Cuba reiterated on Wednesday that it has no interest in returning to the Organization of American States (OAS), although it would attend the upcoming Summit of the Americas to be held in Cartagena, Colombia, on April 14-15.

Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuban Minister for Foreign Affairs

“We reiterate that Cuba will not return to the OAS, nor is it interested in having any kind of relationship with that organization that has served the United States as a platform of domination, occupation, and aggression, to attack and plunder Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla during the inauguration of the Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA) in Havana.

In 1962, under pressure by Washington, the OAS expelled Cuba from the regional organization. And although the resolution was annulled 47 years later, Cuba has said that it has no interest in returning to the group.

However, “Cuba has declared, in response to a consultation from the Colombian government, that, if it is invited, it would attend the Summit of the Americas, with respect and remaining true to its traditional attachment to the truth and its foreign policy based on principles,” Rodriguez Parrilla noted.

The Cuban diplomat recalled that the Summits of the Americas emerged in
1994 in Miami, Florida, as an initiative launched by then US President Bill Clinton as a mechanism for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a project that was defeated in 2005 in Mar del Plata.

The ALBA foreign ministers participating in the political council in Havana are working on a common position prior to the meeting in Cartagena.

During the recent ALBA Summit held in Venezuela, Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa suggested that the member nations of this regional group should not attend the Summit of the Americas if Cuba were not invited.

ALBA is regional group for regional integration and economic cooperation made up of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.

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