[Marxism] Cuba backs India for UN seat, slams US over Iran

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(The United Nations remains, despite various weaknesses, a major
international forum for the discussion and debate over political
ideas in the modern world. It certainly needs reform, and would
be better off, far better off, without the veto power by the 
permanent members, so it can only function within the limits set
for it by the permanent members. Nevertheless, it ramains quite
a significant international institution.)
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Cuba backs India for UN seat, slams US over Iran
By IANS Thursday April 12, 08:25 PM

http://in.news.yahoo.com/070412/43/6ehl6.html

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) Accusing the US of 'double standards' over
the Iranian nuclear issue, Cuba Thursday made a strong pitch for
democratisation of the UN and vigorously backed India for a permanent
seat in an expanded Security Council.

'India, with its growing economy and political weight, satisfies all
the conditions to be a new member of the United Nations Security
Council,' Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told reporters
here Thursday at the end of his two-day visit.

'New members should have veto rights. The UN should be made more
open, transparent and inclusive,' he said while advocating a central
role for the General Assembly in a reformed UN.

Roque also enunciated Cuba's formula for expansion of the UN Security
Council in which two countries each from Latin America, Africa and
Asia should get permanent seats in the UN high table.

Roque's visit to India is the first to a non-aligned country after
Cuba took over the chair of the NAM in September last year.

He met Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the ruling coalition and
Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma and discussed
with them ways to deepen economic and political ties between the two
countries.

Energy ties between India and Cuba are set to grow further with the
Cuban government awarding two offshore oil exploration blocs directly
and another six blocs as part of a consortium to ONGC Videsh Ltd
(OVL), which is the overseas arm of India's hydro-carbon prospecting
major Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

Lashing out at the US for its handling of the Iranian nuclear issue,
Roque strongly defended Tehran's right to peaceful uses of nuclear
energy even as he underlined the NAM's position on complete
elimination of nuclear weapons from the world.

'Israel has 500 nuclear warheads, but nothing is done about it. Why
has the US double standards? That question needs to be answered,' he
asked.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the right agency to
resolve the Iranian issue, he said. Surprisingly, when asked whether
Cuba would implement the UN sanctions against Tehran, accused of
developing nuclear weapons, he replied: 'Cuba, as a member of the UN,
has to comply with it.'

The Cuban minister also lashed out at the US involvement in Iraq as
an unjustified aggression. 'A war was launched in Iraq on a
unilateral basis without endorsement of the UN. The country has
plunged into a civil war,' he said.




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