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Castro Denies U.S. Charges Ahead
Of Carter’s Visit To Cuba, N. Korea Issues Warning
HAVANA, May 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - President Fidel Castro said Friday that U.S. charges of Cuba making biological weapons was a "pack of Olympic-size lies" and asked Washington to show proof of its accusations, as North Korea warned the U.S. against moving battleships to the region.
"This really is a complete lie, a crafty coup against the sale of food to Cuba, authorized under a 2000 law," Castro told reporters in a briefing lasting more than an hour.
His comments came two days before former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, the most prominent American to visit Cuba since Castro came to power, was due to arrive on the communist island Sunday.
As president, Jimmy Carter sought to mend U.S. ties with Cuba, but his efforts fell short amid Cuban intervention in Africa and a massive influx of refugees from the Communist-ruled island.
Carter, now a private citizen, steps back into U.S.-Cuba diplomacy during his visit the island. He is due to meet with President Fidel Castro as well as dissidents, and is expected to address human rights issues.
While president from 1977 to 1981, Carter, a Democrat, however, had sought to normalize relations between the two nations and favored ending the U.S. economic embargo imposed on the island in 1961.
His administration agreed to establish a U.S. interests section in Havana and accept a Cuban interests section in Washington. The administration also eliminated restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. nationals in March 1977.
However, the dispatch of Cuban troops to Ethiopia later that year derailed the process of normalization, and the restrictions were re-imposed in 1982 by then-president Ronald Reagan.
Dialogue between the Cuban-American community and the Castro government resulted in freedom for 3,600 political prisoners and new agreements on emigration from the island.
But the mass exodus of Cubans in 1980 from the port of Mariel sowed fear in the United States after Castro lifted controls on emigration, allowing 125,000 people -- including criminals and mental patients -- to flee to U.S. shores by boat.
U.S. President George W. Bush has recently toughened his talk against Castro.
Monday, the Bush Administration warned Cuba against any proliferation of biological weapons and called on Havana to stop furnishing biological equipment to what the United States calls "rogue nations."
Castro challenged U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton, who made the charges to "present the most minimum amount of evidence."
"They don't have any," Castro added. "And they don't have any because there is none."
Charging that Cuba, as well as Syria and Libya, were sponsors of international terrorism, and of seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the United States effectively put the trio on a waiting list of the "axis of evil" whose occupants currently are Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Meanwhile, North Korea warned the United States Saturday to "act with discretion" after a decision to send warships to South Korea during the World Cup finals later this month.
The move to deploy the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk and other warships, as well as "units for biological and chemical warfare" would harm relations on the peninsula and have a "baneful" impact on the football extravaganza, the North's Minju Joson said in a commentary.
The United States has said it will send a team of chemical and biological experts to the World Cup finals to be co-hosted by South Korea and Japan starting May 31.
Reports have said that U.S. air carriers will be deployed in the waters off South Korea although Washington has not confirmed this.
The commentary accused the United States of beefing up its armed forces in South Korea "under the pretext of surveillance during the World Cup".
"The moves would not only create an atmosphere of confrontation and escalate the military confrontation between the North and South Korea to disturb the regional stability but have a baneful impact on the World Cup," it said.
The commentary also accused the United States of "a sinister intention to...stifle the DPRK [North Korea] under the signboard of the championships".
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