Cuba Confirms Talks With Trump Officials President Miguel Diaz-Canel Seeks Solutions Amid Severe Energy Crisis

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said his government has held talks with the United States, marking the first official confirmation of discussions between the two countries amid Cuba's worsening energy crisis.

Speaking on Friday, Diaz-Canel said the exchanges were intended to address bilateral differences and explore possible cooperation.

“They were aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences between our two nations,” Díaz-Cane l said, adding that“international factors facilitated these exchanges.”

“The aim was to determine the willingness of both parties to take concrete actions for the benefit of the people of both countries,” he said.

However, he did not elaborate on the factors or provide details about the discussions.

Secret meeting involving Marco Rubio

US officials said Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, met with Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, on the sidelines of a Caribbean Community leaders' meeting in Saint Kitts and Nevis in late February.

The meeting reportedly took place quietly, with officials speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

At the time, Rubio declined to disclose who he had been meeting with during the regional gathering.

Energy crisis grips Cuba

The talks come as Cuba struggles with a severe energy shortage. Díaz-Canel said no petroleum shipments have reached the island for three months, blaming the situation on what he described as a US energy blockade.

“Even with everything we're putting together, we still need oil,” he said.

The government has been relying on natural gas, solar power and thermoelectric plants to generate electricity, but fuel shortages have forced two power plants to shut down and limited production at solar facilities.

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Cuba's western region was struck by a major blackout last week, leaving millions without electricity. The government attributed the outage to a broken boiler at a thermoelectric plant, which triggered a shutdown of the national power grid.

Díaz-Canel said the energy shortages have disrupted communications, education and transportation, while hospitals have been forced to postpone tens of thousands of surgeries.

“The impact is tremendous,” he said.

Oil shipments from Venezuela halted

The situation worsened after oil shipments from Venezuela were halted following US action against the country and the arrest of its president Nicolás Maduro.

Since then, the administration of Donald Trump has warned Cuba that it could face a similar outcome.

Speaking at a gathering of Latin American leaders in Florida last week, Trump said:“They have no money, they have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that's been bad for a long time.”

(With AP inputs)

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