Cuba\u2019s foreign minister has accused anyone claiming attacks took place against US diplomats in Havana of \u201cdeliberately lying,\u201d echoing comments he made last week in an ongoing dispute. \u201cIt is time the United States tells the truth or presents evidence,\u201d Bruno Rodriguez insisted during a press conference in Washington yesterday, referring to incidents which affected the health of at least 24 US embassy officials in Havana, according to the State Department. \u201cThose who state there have been attacks, deliberate acts or specific incidents causing damage to health are deliberately lying,\u201d he said, adding that so far US authorities \u201chave not presented an atom of evidence\u201d the alleged attacks happened.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier described the incidents, which began last year, as \u201chealth attacks.\u201d Several Canadian families were also affected. Washington\u2019s ties with Havana were only fully restored in 2015 after a half-century Cold War breakdown, but have been strained since President Donald Trump took office in January.<\/p>\n
Washington has not formally blamed Havana, but in mid-October Trump said that he holds Cuba responsible \u2014 and the White House has said it believes the country could bring the attacks to a halt.\u201dThe so-called sonic attacks \u2026 are totally false,\u201d Rodriguez said last Saturday in a surprise appearance at a Washington meeting of Cubans living in the United States. He called the allegations \u201cpolitical manipulation aimed at damaging bilateral relations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both governments opened investigations into the mysterious incidents \u2014 which US officials said may have been carried out with some sort of acoustic device. Cuban experts investigating the case said it \u201cis impossible that only one cause explains the diverse range of symptoms\u201d reportedly experienced by diplomats.<\/p>\n
The State Department says the most recent incident was at the end of August, with those affected experiencing hearing loss, cognitive problems, and difficulty sleeping. On September 29, the United States halved its personnel in Havana and suspended visa services indefinitely. The White House also expelled 15 diplomats from the Cuban embassy in Washington, arguing Havana did not comply with responsibilities under the Vienna Convention to ensure the safety of diplomats on its soil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cuba\u2019s foreign minister has accused anyone claiming attacks took place against US diplomats in Havana of \u201cdeliberately lying,\u201d echoing comments he made last week in an ongoing dispute. \u201cIt is time the United States tells the truth or presents evidence,\u201d Bruno Rodriguez insisted during a press conference in Washington yesterday, referring to incidents which affected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9265","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\/9265","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=9265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9267,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9265\/revisions\/9267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}