Cuban dictator Fidel Castro marked his 89th birthday by declaring the United States owes his country millions of dollars for the current trade embargo.
The United States instituted the embargo in 1962, three years after Castro’s communist regime seized control of the island.
“Cuba is owed compensation equivalent to damages, which total many millions of dollars, as our country has stated with irrefutable arguments and data in all of its speeches at the United Nations,” Castro said.
Castro’s statement comes ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Havana where he will raise the American flag at the re-opened US Embassy.
Cuba recently stated the United States would have to offer other incentives in order to fully “normalize” relations between the two countries. Economic reparations is one of the demands as well as the return of land around Guantanamo Bay.
