Cuba describes its exclusion from the Summit of the Americas as "undemocratic"

Bolivarian Alliance in front of the Summit of the Americas 2:20

Havana, Cuba (CNN) --

The Cuban government lashed out this Monday against the decision of the United States not to invite its country, Nicaragua or Venezuela to the Summit of the Americas, the regional meeting that is being held this week. in Los Angeles.

• Why won't Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua (and Mexico) be at the Summit of the Americas?

"There is not a single reason that justifies the undemocratic and arbitrary exclusion of any country in the hemisphere from this continental meeting," condemned a statement from the Foreign Ministry.

"You cannot talk about the Americas without including all the countries of the hemisphere," the statement insisted.

• The Summit of the Americas returns to the US, its first host.

  Here, the keys to understand what it is and how it works

US officials claimed that the lack of human rights and democratic elections in those three Latin American countries led to their exclusion from the event.

Cuba was invited to the Summit of the Americas for the first time in 2015, in the midst of a rapprochement with the then government of Barack Obama, and again in 2018.

Controversy over invitations threatened to derail the summit before it even started after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador threatened to boycott the event if Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited.

This Monday, López Obrador announced that he would not attend, and that he would send a delegation instead.

• Can López Obrador's position on the Summit of the Americas influence the relationship with the US?

US officials said they invited Cuban opposition activists to represent the island in Los Angeles.

But several said the Cuban government prevented them from traveling to the summit.

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