HAVANA, May 16. /TASS/. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has called on the United States to remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and lift economic sanctions.

"It is widely known that Cuba is cooperating in fighting terrorism, so, the United States must take the right and logical step: remove Cuba from the arbitrary list of the Department of State and put an end to the coercive economic measure that come with it," he wrote on his X account.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 following the nationalization of American property in that country. After that, Washington imposed a trade and economic embargo against Cuba. In December 2014, US President Barack Obama admitted that the Washington’s former policy towards Havana was not working and announced plans to move towards normalization of bilateral ties and mitigation of the anti-Cuban sanctions. In 2015, the Obama administration said that Cuba had been removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But the process was suspended after Donald Trump took the president’s office in January 2017. He toughened the trip procedures for US citizens and imposed a ban on doing business with organizations controlled by the Cuban military. The Trump administration put Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism again. The Biden administration promised to revise its policy toward Cuba but has not removed it from the above-mentioned list yet.

In November 2023, the United Nations General Assembly passed the 31st resolution calling on the United States to lift economic, commercial, and financial sanctions from Cuba. The document was supported by 187 member nations, with only two (the United States and Israel) being against and one (Ukraine) abstaining.