Cuba condemns the intensification of the blockade policy maintained by the U.S. government against the country for more than 60 years, said José Fidel Santana Núñez, First Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Environment (Citma) in Vienna, Austria.
Its extraterritorial application undermines the development of our nation, the welfare of its citizens, violates International Law and hinders the full exercise of our right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, he warned.
Santana Núñez was speaking at the 68th Plenary Meeting of the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where he heads the Cuban delegation to the meeting that concludes this Friday.
The Cuban Network of Nuclear Communicators reproduced the text of his speech, according to which he expressed his rejection of unilateral coercive measures that affect the development and sovereign rights of States.
He expressed his gratitude to the IAEA for its contribution to the development of national capacities through technical cooperation and "we urge it to continue seeking new forms of management that allow the satisfaction of the growing needs of its Member States".
"Cuba, faithful to its tradition of solidarity, places at the disposal of all countries, especially developing countries, its human resources and capabilities acquired in these years of successful cooperation with the IAEA, for the use of nuclear technologies for peace and sustainable development," he added.
The current global context is not encouraging, climate change is threatening everyone, causing more poverty and hunger, and powerful countries and consortiums are allocating their resources to less noble tasks than to alleviating this situation, warned the First Deputy Minister of Citma.
As a result, he continued, incalculable resources are wasted on the development and modernization of nuclear weapons, while development aid commitments are not being fulfilled.
On the contrary, he reiterated the importance of strengthening the promotion of science and cooperation as fundamental pillars for making social and economic progress possible, particularly in developing countries.
Likewise, the commitment to multilateralism and nuclear disarmament in a transparent, verifiable and irreversible manner, for which we consider that the universalization of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will be crucial, he said.
He emphasized the management of the Division for Latin America and the Caribbean, in which Cuba has been one of the countries benefiting from cooperation opportunities and has demonstrated a high level of compliance with its commitments since its participation in national and regional projects.
