Cuba has lodged a protest with the top US diplomat on the island over extra screening for Cuban citizens flying into the US, calling the rule a “hostile action” meant to justify America’s trade embargo.
The new dispute comes after several setbacks that have all but snuffed out hope for a quick resolution to the half-century of antagonism between Cuba and the United States, and as Cuban officials have been increasingly sharp-spoken about their disappointment in President Barack Obama.
Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s North American affairs office, said the new security controls were “discriminatory and selective.”
“We categorically reject this new hostile action by the government of the US against Cuba,” she told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.
Vidal Ferreiro said she lodged the protest in a meeting with Jonathan Farrar, the head of the US Interest Section, which Washington maintains in Cuba instead of an embassy. Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington delivered a similar message to State Department officials earlier in the day, she said.
The US imposed the airline security measures following an apparent attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a passenger jet as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day.
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Among the 14 nations whose citizens will face increased scrutiny are four – Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria – that the US government considers state sponsors of terrorism.
Cuba has been on that list since the 1980s, but has always maintained its inclusion had more to do with the United States’ antagonistic policy toward the communist-governed nation than with evidence that it sponsors terrorism.
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