Governor of Puerto Rico Asserts Cuba Should Decide its Future

Alejandro Garcia, governor of Puerto Rico, said in this capital that Cuba's political future must be decided by its people and that the wish of Cubans in their Revolution should be respected.

Garcia, first governor of Puerto Rico in office traveling to Cuba since 1898, had a brief contact with the press accredited to the Seventh Summit of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), which he attended as a guest.

During the opening of the high-level segment of the meeting, Army General Raul Castro, President of the councils of State and Ministers, said it is expected "to count one day on the joining of all the peoples of the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico as an independent and sovereign nation.”

When asked about his view on the illegal U.S. military base in Guantanamo, the Puerto Rican Governor asserted that this reality responds to historic events and should be reviewed in the context of the process towards normalization of relations between Cuba and the northern country.

Garcia said that he had a brief meeting with the Cuban president and several ministers, in what he described as "a very productive day," adding that his country has on its agenda to start procedures to open an office in Havana to promote cultural and commercial exchanges.

He assured that cultural ties with Cuba are extraordinary, and emphasized on the prospect that relations in that area and in services are "at first a motor agent of bilateral exchanges."

The Puerto Rican Governor did not rule out future cooperation between the two countries to combat the Zika virus, present in several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and transmitted by the Aedes mosquito.
   
In that regard he explained that "everything that Cuba may need that Puerto Pico can provide, or any fraternal country, we will provide, and I'm sure it is a mutual offering, as has always been in the face of any kind of emergency, and with Zika it will not be different".