The Trump administration on Tuesday ordered the expulsion of 15 diplomats from Cuba\u2019s embassy in Washington following last week\u2019s US move to pull more than half of its own diplomats out of Havana.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the latest decision was made due to Cuba\u2019s \u201cfailure to take appropriate steps\u201d to protect American personnel in Cuba who have been targeted in mysterious \u201cattacks\u201d that have damaged their health.<\/p>\n
The steps being taken by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration mark a further blow to his predecessor Barack Obama\u2019s policy of rapprochement between Washington and Havana, former Cold War foes.<\/p>\n
A State Department official said the number of expulsions was selected to make sure the US and Cuban embassies would have \u201cequitable staffing levels\u201d while investigations continue into the unexplained \u201chealth attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US decision to expel a large portion of Cuban staff at the embassy was communicated to Cuban Ambassador Jose Ramon Cabanas on Tuesday, and the diplomats were given seven days to leave the United States, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The move follows an announcement on Friday that the United States was sharply reducing its diplomatic presence in Cuba as it warned US citizens not to visit because of attacks that have caused hearing loss, dizziness and fatigue in US embassy personnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil the Government of Cuba can ensure the safety of our diplomats in Cuba, our embassy will be reduced to emergency personnel to minimize the number of diplomats at risk of exposure to harm,\u201d Tillerson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba, and will continue to cooperate with Cuba as we pursue the investigation into these attacks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The number of American diplomats suffering symptoms has increased to 22, the State Department official said.<\/p>\n
The official maintained that despite the U.S. moves, Washington was not assigning \u201cculpability\u201d to Cuba\u2019s Communist government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Trump administration on Tuesday ordered the expulsion of 15 diplomats from Cuba\u2019s embassy in Washington following last week\u2019s US move to pull more than half of its own diplomats out of Havana. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the latest decision was made due to Cuba\u2019s \u201cfailure to take appropriate steps\u201d to protect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6715,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713\/revisions\/6715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}