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Spotlight: Cuba pushes for embargo vote at UN after restoring U.S. ties

Xinhua, October 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

Cuba is gearing up to submit to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday its annual draft resolution calling for an end to the U.S.-led five-decade embargo against the Caribbean nation.

It expects the general outcome of the vote to be in its favor, as has been over the past 23 years. But it also expects the White House to act in keeping with the new reality of U.S.-Cuba ties.

What's different this time around is the fact that Washington has restored diplomatic ties with Havana, and no longer considers Cuba to be its enemy.

Cuba says the trade embargo, which it describes as more of a blockade because it blocks third nations from doing business with the island, has robbed the country of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars.

The proposed resolution will be presented by the island's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

The 193 UN member countries will debate and vote on the Cuban document, which brings together elements proving how the U.S. embargo continued to strengthen in 2015 "with a marked and increasing extraterritorial character."

"Up to April 2015, the accumulated damages of the blockade increased to 833.755 billion dollars, according to the value of gold on the international market," Rodriguez said.

Washington decreed the blockade against Havana officially on Feb. 3, 1962, following the intensification of the political differences that emerged with the fledgling socialist government led by Fidel Castro.

Since the resolution was first put to a vote in 1992, the U.S. has been increasingly isolated, with the international community voting near unanimously in favor of Cuba, and only Washington and stalwart ally Israel voting against it, as happened last year.

With U.S. President Barack Obama restoring ties with Cuba, and easing restrictions on trade, remittances and travel, the atmosphere at the General Assembly this year will be decidedly different.

However, Obama has said his executive powers can only go so far, and has called on Congress to repeal the embargo.

That has led to conjecture in Cuba that the White House might at least abstain from voting against the resolution this year.

"There can be no normalization of diplomatic ties as long as the blockade remains," Rodriguez said in September.

"What will tell whether this process (of rapprochement) makes sense -- and I hope it does -- is precisely the full and unconditional lifting of the blockade," he added. Endi