ReutersArgentine President Javier Milley fired International Minister Diana Mondino after the United Nations voted in favor of lifting the U.S. financial embargo on Cuba.
Argentina was one in every of 187 international locations that supported the non-binding U.N. decision on Wednesday. Solely the USA and Israel voted in opposition to the decision.
That is the primary time since Milley took workplace that Argentina has not aligned itself with the governments of the USA and Israel.
Mondino has been changed by Ambassador to Washington Gerardo Veitín. Following the transfer, President Milley’s workplace mentioned Argentina “firmly opposes the Cuban dictatorship”.
Beneath the previous left-wing Peronist authorities, Argentina had shut ties with Cuba and supported an finish to the financial embargo imposed by the USA when Cuba was communist within the Nineteen Sixties.
In alternate, Cuba has persistently supported Argentina’s declare to the Falkland Islands, a British abroad territory. In 1982, Britain and Argentina waged a quick however fierce warfare over the territory.
President Milley’s workplace subsequently issued a press release geared toward outlining the political imaginative and prescient behind his overseas coverage.
“The nation goes by means of a interval of profound change, and this new part requires our diplomatic corps to embody in each choice the values of freedom, sovereignty and particular person rights that characterize Western democracies,” the assertion learn.
“Our nation firmly opposes the Cuban dictatorship and can proceed to steadfastly pursue a overseas coverage that condemns all regimes that violate human rights,” the assertion continued.
Observers say frictions between the president and the overseas ministry have intensified in current months over a variety of points.
Nevertheless, Mondino is taken into account vital to Argentina’s public picture overseas and has typically stepped in to defuse tensions after Milai’s confrontational feedback angered different international locations.
After the Cuban Revolution in 1962, Fidel Castro got here to energy and the USA imposed a commerce embargo for the primary time.
Washington hopes to drive the island to reject Castro’s socialist insurance policies and embrace capitalism and democracy.
Nevertheless, the embargo failed to realize this aim and have become a bone of competition within the area and its neighbours.
