Cuban dictator Raúl Castro met North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, in Havana on Friday before the two issued a joint statement of solidarity.
President Donald Trump announced last week the U.S. State Department would designate North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, a move both Cuba and North Korea opposed. Cuba was a longtime member of the state sponsors of terrorism list until 2015, at which time, former President Barack Obama removed the communist country despite its ties to Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and other terrorist groups.
Castro “received this past Friday Comrade Ri Yong Ho,” Cuban state newspaper Granma reported. “In a fraternal encounter, both parties affirmed the historic ties of friendship that exist between the two nations and discussed international matters of common interest.”
Ri also “relayed a greeting from President [sic] Kim Jong-un to the commander in chief, which was reciprocated, as well as a verbal message and condolences for the first anniversary of the death of historic revolutionary leader Fidel Castro Ruz.” North Korea declared a three-day mourning period when the dictator died last year.
The Cuban newspaper did not specify what the two leaders discussed.
In addition to meeting Castro, Ri met with his Cuban counterpart, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez. The North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun stated that the two agreed to “further consolidate the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries.”
“Both sides strongly rejected the arbitrary practice of the U.S. which re-designated the DPRK [North Korea] as a ‘sponsor of terrorism’ as a wanton violation of international law,” Rodong Sinmun added, noting that Rodríguez specifically praised “the people’s struggle for sovereignty, independence and right to self-determination and the right to establishment of one’s own style political, economic, social and cultural system and non-interference.”
North Korea has always touted Cuba as one of its closest friends on the international stage. “The DPRK-Cuba friendship is the invincible friendship forged under the banner of socialism,” Rodong Sinmun declared in August, following a meeting of high-level officials. “The Korean and Cuban peoples keenly felt through their life experience that socialism represents the ideal and rosy future of mankind. So they have fulfilled their sacred obligation in the joint struggle against the imperialists and for building socialism.”
North Korea has typically boasted of Cuba’s support in times when the United Nations has issued new sanctions on it or threatened more.
Cuba and North Korea also signed a technology and intelligence-sharing agreement in 2016.
North Korea had announced the visit to Cuba last week, just as China sent Special Envoy Song Tao to Pyongyang. China has a policy of sending envoys to all communist nations following the Communist Party of China (CPC) Congress, which occurred in October, to update fellow communists on the event. China’s relationship with North Korea, which is still the strongest bilateral relationship Pyongyang enjoys, has suffered tensions in the past year over North Korea’s continued violation of international laws against nuclear development. Trump has endeavored to involve the Chinese government in containing the North Korean threat.
In announcing North Korea’s return to the terrorism sponsors list, President Trump lamented that it “should have happened a long time ago.” The Bush administration removed North Korea from the list in 2008.
“The North Korean regime must be lawful,” Trump said. “It must end its unlawful nuclear and ballistic missile development, and cease all support for international terrorism — which it is not doing.”
North Korea responded in a scathing Rodong Sinmun rant that declared America “the biggest terrorist sponsor on our planet.”
“Terrorism is what makes the rogue state U.S. exist, … [and] the U.S. is the biggest terrorist sponsor and the biggest state-sponsored terrorist universally recognized by the international community,” it continued.
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