Restoration of Cuba-US diplomatic relations not to affect Russian-Cuban ties - deputy

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/. Restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States will not negatively affect the contacts between Moscow and Havana, the first deputy chairman of the international affairs committee of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, Leonid Kalashnikov (Communist Party), said Wednesday. "This will not affect the Russian-Cuban relations, because Cuba understands perfectly well the cost of all these, including diplomatic, gestures on the part of the United States," Kalashnikov told TASS while commenting on US President Barack Obama’s statement that the American embassy will open in Havana in summer. He said Cuban colleagues say they only want to build normal relations with the United States. "Normal, but not friendly. They realize that it’s still very far from friendship with America, and the road toward it lies through Guantanamo, the base the US should return but it is clearly not ready for that," the parliamentarian said. He said the US will use its embassy in Cuba "as a foothold for counterpropaganda, for work with the so-called civil society." "It’s what they do across the world without feeling embarrassed," the deputy said. Read more