The Prime Minister hopes that, with the new Government, Tehran will invest more in the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 22 August 2024 — “To what extent is Cuba willing to change?” The key question of the HispanTV journalist who interviewed Manuel Marrero during his visit to Iran, at the beginning of the month, produced an uncomfortable silence in the prime minister. After a long detour, he summarized the immobility that his Cabinet – in conjunction with the Presidency headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel – represents: “Well, we will never give up the principles of the Revolution.”
In less than 30 minutes of conversation with an interlocutor who was not going to set traps for him – Jaime Yoan Batista, who came from Holguin as did Marrero and is now a resident of Tehran – the Prime Minister relayed the message that interested him: Iran’s economic aid could reach the Island faster, but there is reluctance.
The two countries are allied in their enmity toward the United States, he argued, and they recognize a “very strong” alliance between them. “We always coincide in different points of view” with Iran, because of the “cruel and unjust persecution” by “Washington and all its allies.” Both feel they are victims of the United States in the international arena. “We are two warrior peoples,” he said; hence, he does not understand why economic relations are going so slowly.
“We have identified all the fields in which we could cooperate, among them biotechnology, which is key, and important steps have already been taken,” he said
“We have identified all the fields in which we could cooperate, among them biotechnology, which is key, and important steps have already been taken,” he said. He alluded to the Soberana 02 vaccine for Covid, which Iran and Cuba jointly manufactured, and which the Persian country sold under the name of PastuCovac, which so far has not received the endorsement of the World Health Organization. “Western countries were not going to help us,” Marrero alleged, so they made a “technology transfer” to the Pasteur Institute of Iran, which was willing to finance the manufacture of the product.
“In the field of energy we have important negotiations that we need to continue consolidating,” he said, alleging Cuba’s “need for fuel” that Iran could alleviate.
“We need to move to another stage,” Marrero pressed. Batista asked if that advance was expected to happen at least in the medium term. The prime minister again diverted the question and said that he hoped that his presence at the inauguration of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, would mark “a before and after” in trade relations.
Marrero celebrated the “change in the direction of the Government,” which, he said, brings favorable signs for Cuba in economic terms. He soon realized that his comment implied that his relations with Ebrahim Raisí, the previous president – who died in a helicopter crash on May 19 – were not the best. “All our people felt his unfortunate death,” he said. “But well, they had new elections and there is a new direction.”
From Tehran, Marrero leaves with a promise from the Ayatollah regime: at the end of the year, an Iranian commission will visit Havana by order of Pezeshkian “to now update all the agreements and set dates for their implementation.” Just words, at least for the moment.
Marrero spoke of other points in common with Iran, in particular its position against Israel in favor of the Palestinians. “With the State of Israel, everyone knows that we don’t have any kind of diplomatic relationship,” he said. He “totally” endorsed Tehran’s position in the war and its military support for Hamas. “Israel is not sanctioned, but Iran, Venezuela and Cuba… I was missing Russia,” Batista agreed.
The prime minister stuck to common subject matter to extend his conversation, which only at the end dealt with the internal situation of Cuba
The prime minister stuck to common subject matter – the blockade, the isolation by the axis of “allies,” independence,” the “doctors in more than 50 countries when no one helped us in the pandemic” – to extend his conversation, which only at the end dealt with the internal situation of Cuba.
“What is the Government of Cuba doing to help alleviate what is happening from the economic point of view?” Batista asked, and it seemed that the tone of the interview was going to be raised. It was, of course, a false alarm. Marrero took advantage of the opportunity and appealed to other topics, such as that the country does everything it can with its own resources and that Cuba “lives from one day to the next with its current situation.”
“Even friendly banks tell us that they can’t give us credit because we can be sanctioned,” he lamented. “Times have changed; there are things and measures that we applied at the time that no longer make sense today, and they have to be corrected. We identified eight strategic objectives,” he said, although he alluded only to containing inflation, “intervening in the illegal foreign exchange market” and a “ferocious fight against illegalities.”
Asked about the new elections in the United States, he practically announced Donald Trump as the winner. “We already know it, and we have prepared a program for Trump’s second term,” he said. “But we are open to foreign investment, even to Cubans living abroad who want to invest in their country.”
“We are not afraid of change,” he insisted, and to prove it he gave an example that borders on science fiction: “Even if Artificial Intelligence is used for evil, we are preparing for that too.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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