Cuba summons top US diplomat, accuses US of stoking protests
- US urges Cuban government to ‘respect the human rights of the protesters’, prompting summons of US charge d’affaires
- On Sunday, Cubans staged rare street protests at several locations across island, over shortages of electricity, fuel and food
Cuba’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the top US diplomat on the island to a meeting following protests on Sunday, accusing the US embassy in Havana of seeking to stoke a broader anti-government uprising and meddling in Cuba’s internal affairs.
Rallies in protest of oppressive, hours-long blackouts and food shortages erupted in at least five locations across the island on Sunday, including Cuba’s second largest city Santiago, state-run media said.
Those comments prompted Cuba’s foreign ministry to call charge d’affaires Benjamin Ziff to a meeting with deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, “who formally conveyed his firm rejection of the government’s interventionist behaviour and slanderous messages”, a statement from the ministry said.
A US State Department spokesman said it was “absurd” to suggest Washington was behind the protests.
