Counter-terrorism: Cuba blacklisted in the United States

The United States announced Wednesday that it has added Cuba to a blacklist of countries that it says are not cooperating enough in counterterrorism. Cuba joins four other opponents of Washington (Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela) who have not obtained, for the year 2019, the certification required by an American law on counter-terrorism - a prerequisite for any sale of arms by the United States.

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It is the first time that Havana has returned to this group of countries since it was withdrawn from it in 2015 under the presidency of Barack Obama, who had initiated a rapprochement with the Cuban regime.

The US State Department invokes the presence on the island of negotiators of the Colombian rebel group ELN, who came to negotiate with Bogota in 2017 in the Cuban capital but who did not leave.

"Cuba's refusal to discuss productively with the Colombian government shows that it does not cooperate with the work of the United States in support of Colombia's efforts for a just and lasting peace," said American diplomacy.

A senior Cuban official replied that Havana, on the contrary, was "a victim of terrorism".

"There is a long history of terrorist acts by the United States government against Cuba and the complicity of the United States authorities with individuals and organizations who have hatched, funded and perpetrated such acts from within United States," said Carlos on Twitter F. de Cossio, responsible for relations with the United States at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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The non-certification of the State Department will have no practical impact, since Havana, already at loggerheads with Washington, does not import American weapons. But this is the latest in a long list of defiance of the Communist Island since Donald Trump's arrival in the White House in early 2017.