Gorbachev pressure unlikely, says Cuba

Press, 3 April 1989, Page 10

Gorbachev pressure unlikely, says Cuba

NZPA-Reuter Havana A senior Cuban Government official said on Saturday he did not expect the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to ask Cuba to alter its support of Leftwing revolutionary movements.

Mr Gorbachev was to arrive in the Cuban capital of Havana to a wellorganised mass welcome by over half a million people for what the Cuban official media hailed as a “historic event” and a milestone in the "unbreakable friendship” between the two communist States.

“I doubt very much the Soviet Union would be inclined to ask Cuba not to support revolutionary movements and revolutionary countries the world over because that is also part of their (the Soviets’) own internationalist policy,” the Deputy Foreign Minister, Raul Roa Kouri, said.

Cuba had the right to support revolutionaries “because other Governments believe they have a right to support counter-

revolutionaries,” said Mr Kouri, in an apparent reference to the United States and its aid to the Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua’s Leftist Government. Soviet and Cuban officials said Mr Gorbachev and the Cuban President, Fidel Castro, would downplay differences and probably work hard to convince the administration of the United States President, George Bush, that there was little political mileage to be gained in seeking to drive a wedge between Moscow and Havana. Cuban support for Leftist guerrilla movements ranks high on the list of obstacles Washington sees to a restoration of normal relations with Havana after 30 years of open hostility. Mr Kouri said he hoped United States-Cuban relations could improve but added, “It takes two to tango and we don’t know if the US is ready to sit down and negotiate.” He said the Soviet Union and Cuba might disagree on certain things

but stressed that Moscow “had never put pressure on Cuba to follow anything.” On his way to Cuba, Mr Gorbachev was to spend two hours in Ireland. Making the first official visit to Ireland by a Soviet head of State, Mr Gorbachev was to stop over at Shannon Airport. The Dublin Government laid on the red-carpet treatment and a packed programme for what the Irish media called the “the shamrock and sickle summit.”

The Irish Prime Minister, Charles Haughey, said the visit would focus attention on “the very major change that has taken place in international affairs — the fact that one of the super Powers finds it important to talk to a very small neutral democracy.” . During 40 minutes of talks with Mr Gorbachev, Mr Haughey is expected to discuss Northern Ireland, Anglo-Irish relations and the fight by Irish nationalist guerrillas for a united Ireland.