Cuba protests inclusion on list for tougher airline screening

Cuba is protesting its addition to a list of 14 nations that will be forced to undergo tougher security screening for flights heading to the US.

The island nation has never been connected to al Qaeda, but it has been added to a list of 14 nations whose passengers have been designated for tougher security checks before boarding flights to the US.

Director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry in North America, Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, said that the nation categorically rejects the new hostile action by the United States against Cuba.

She described the new security controls as discriminatory and selective and has lodged a protest with US diplomats on the island, and that the Swiss Embassy in Washington delivered a similar complaint to the state department.

The two nations have been at odds soon after Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959, and the US has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for 47 years.

Cuba has remained on the State Department’s list of sponsors of terrorism since the 1980s, even though it always maintained its inclusion had more to do with the US’s antagonistic policy towards the communist-governed state than evidence that it supports terrorism.

However, State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley said Cuba deserved to be included on the list, as it is believed that it is a prudent step to their assessment of the current threat to US interests and particularly the aviation system around the world.

Travellers from the 14 countries included in the list for extra screening must undergo full-body pat-downs and their carry-on luggage checked. The other countries are: Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. Iran, Syria and Sudan are on the terror sponsor list with Cuba. Cuba is the only country of the 14 that is not predominantly Muslim.

Source:fly.co.uk/