Cuban President Diaz-Canel says he will only speak to Trump ‘as equals’
Remarks come amid deteriorating Cuban-US relations since Trump began rolling back Obama’s Cuba policy
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Your support makes all the difference.Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said his government could not talk with US President Donald Trump as long as Trump's administration kept its “abnormal” attitude towards the Communist-run island.
“We want to dialogue but it must be as equals,” President Diaz-Canel said in the wide-ranging interview with Venezuela-based television station Telesur broadcast on Sunday evening, echoing his predecessor and mentor, Raul Castro.
“We do not accept impositions and we are not willing to make concessions,” he said.
The interview was the first Mr Diaz-Canel has given since taking office in April.
Cuban-US relations have deteriorated sharply since President Trump took office and began partially rolling back the historic détente agreed by his predecessor Barack Obama after decades of hostility.
They have also worsened over what the United States says were a spate of health attacks on its diplomats based in Havana. Cuba denies any involvement.
“Cuba does not attack, Cuba defends, Cuba shares,” said President Diaz-Canel, who referred many times throughout the interview to Fidel Castro, the late leader of the 1959 revolution, and his younger brother, Raul Castro.
Raul Castro, 87, remains head of the Communist Party until 2021 and is “like a father” to Mr Diaz-Canel, according to the 58-year-old president who said they talk nearly every day.
President Diaz-Canel praised Cuba's long-standing alliance with Venezuela but also said he welcomed the presidential victory of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico that was “encouraging” for Latin America.
On the topic of a draft new constitution being debated at community meetings throughout Cuba, President Diaz-Canel said the removal of the word “communism” did not mean Cuba was renouncing that aspiration.
The document, which should replace a Cold War-era constitution, still refers to socialism, which implies communism, he said.
Mr Diaz-Canel said he supported the proposed change to the constitution to allow for same-sex marriage.
“I defend there being no kind of discrimination,” he said, although it was up to the Cuban people to decide whether to include the change.
Reuters
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