Russian foreign minister arrives to Havana on official visit

HAVANA, July 24. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday began his official visit to Cuba, which will become the first country in the Russian top diplomat’s Latin American tour. The plane with the Russian delegation landed in the Cuban capital Havana at 04:40 Moscow time on Wednesday (21:40 Tuesday local time). The minister was greeted by the Director General of Bilateral Affairs of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Emilio Lozada Garcia and the Russian ambassador to Havana, Andrei Guskov. During his current visit to Havana, expected to last less than a day, Russia’s top diplomat will meet with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, who visited Moscow in May. The ministers are expected to discuss trade and economic cooperation, cultural and humanitarian issues and main problems on the regional and global agenda. Sergey Lavrov visited the republic for about a dozen of times, his previous working visit to the country took place in April 2014. After concluding his visit to the Cuban capital late on July 24, Lavrov will head to Rio de Janeiro, where is to attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) foreign ministers’ conference and to hold a series of bilateral meetings. Once his visit to Brazil is over, Lavrov will travel to Suriname to pay the first-ever visit by a Russian foreign minister in the history of bilateral relations. Read more