President of Cuba attends the closing session of the 18th ALBA-TCP Political Council

Miguel Díaz-Canel, president of the Councils of State and Ministers, attends the final session of the 18th Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty, which meets in this capital.

At the opening of the meeting, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that the meeting takes place at a time of return of U.S. interventionism with the imposition of the Monroe Doctrine, neoliberalism and McCarthyism, which is why this integration mechanism is and will be a mechanism of resistance against the ultra-right wave unleashed against the region.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, in his speech, called on the United States to resolve differences through diplomacy, to cease the military threat and the blockade against Cuba, Nicaragua and their country, threats to which it is pertinent to raise the alerts of the peoples and governments.

His Bolivian counterpart Diego Pary Rodríguez called for defending multilateralism and international law against the threat of imperial powers, while Carlos Castaneda, El Salvador’s foreign minister, specified that the region has in its hands the instruments of regional integration to face the current challenges, including the declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

David Choquehuanca, executive secretary of this regional integration mechanism, pointed out that ALBA must rise with its own identity and decolonizing thinking, and stressed the importance of strengthening its own cultural codes in order to put an end to individualism and egocentrism, and return to the path of integration.

The 18th ALBA-TCP Political Council took place with the participation of ministers and representatives from Cuba, Venezuela, El Salvador, Bolivia and leaders from the rest of the member states, who met with the aim of agreeing on strategies to defend peace and integration in the region.

(Taken from ACN in Spanish)

Written by Radio Grito de Baire