This content was published on Apr 16, 2023 – 23:09
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Havana, April 16 (EFE). – The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Cuba on April 19 for talks with government authorities, the island’s foreign ministry reported on Sunday.
A brief statement published by the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) indicated that Lavrov will carry out “other activities of interest to him” during his official visit.
Lavrov is scheduled to visit Cuba as part of a Latin American tour that begins on Monday in Brazil, which also includes Venezuela and Nicaragua, Russia’s two main allies in the region.
Havana and Moscow have strengthened their bilateral relationship in recent years in an attempt to re-establish the close cooperation they maintained until the disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russia is one of Cuba’s ten largest trading partners, and both governments define their partnership as “strategic”.
In November 2022, Diaz-Canel met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Moscow, where he analyzed the state and development prospects of the Russian-Cuban Strategic Association in the political, economic, trade, cultural and humanitarian spheres.
A month later, Diaz-Canel and Putin had a telephone conversation in which they expressed their intention to continue strengthening “in a comprehensive manner the Russian-Cuban strategic bond,” according to a statement from the Russian government.
The Cuban president declared his country’s “desire” to move the political dialogue and bilateral economic and trade relations with Russia to a “higher moment”.
In recent months, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Cuban-Russian Business Council, Titov Boris Yuryevich, and the CEO of state oil giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin, have traveled to the island. EFE
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