Mexican Senate President Visits Cuba
BY MIRIELA FERNANDEZ LOZANO

Cuba and Mexico reiterated this Thursday their commitment to strengthen bilateral ties during a meeting at the Havana Foreign Ministry between Bruno Rodriguez, Cuban first vice minister of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) and Gustavo Madero, president of the Mexican Senate, who is visiting the island.

After welcoming the Mexican delegation, Rodriguez highlighted the historic ties of friendship between the two countries and the most recent acts of bilateral cooperation.

Rodriguez said the interest to continue working together has been evident over recent months with the visit to Cuba of Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, the meeting between Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and several Mexican authorities in that nation, the meeting in Brazil between presidents Felipe Calderon and Raul Castro, and the collaboration in the fields of education and culture.

Madero expressed Mexico’s willingness to support the struggle to free the Cuban Free, unjustly imprisoned in the United States, and to take new actions to achieve a pronouncement of the international community against the blockade imposed by the US against Cuba.

"During the Tenth Intergovernmental Meeting last December in Mexico, we stated those commitments and also to back Cuba on the migratory issue," said Madero.

The Mexican delegation visiting Cuba includes: Senate Vice Presidents Jose Gonzalez Morfin and Yeidckol Polevnsky, and secretaries of the Senate leadership Leominio Zoreda, Adrian Rivera, Ludvina Menchaca and Claudia Sofia Corichi. Others with the group are Cesar Leal, president of the Foreign Relations Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Senator Ricardo Monreal.

Madero and the delegation will be in Cuba through Saturday, and during their stay will visit centers of economic, social and historic interest and hold talks with Cuban government authorities and officials at the Communist Party Central Committee.