Cuba, Ethiopia Have Huge Potential to Elevate Historic Relations: Ambassador

Cuba and Ethiopia have ample potential to boost the historic and popular relationship in the years to come, Ambassador Jorge Lefebre Nicolas said.

In an exclusive interview with ENA, Cuba’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Nicolas said the relationship between the two countries has been very good from the beginning.

Citing the historic support of his country to Ethiopia to repulse the invading army of Mohammed Siad Barre of Somalia, he noted that marked the beginning of relationship between the countries.

Cuba, which was under the leadership of Fidel Castro, sent tens of thousands of soldiers who fought alongside the Ethiopian army against the invading forces of Somalia for nine months.

March 5, 1978 marked the victory of Ethiopian army over the invading Somali army.

After the Ethio-Somalia war, “we started to offer some assistant in medical field, agriculture and education; and that created a special link between Ethiopia and Cuba which remains for many years,” the ambassador stated.

According to him, the relation between Ethiopia and Cuba is very good both at government-to- government and people-to-people levels.

The relationship that has been strong was later diversified and the cooperation is now nice and the countries have still more potential to develop the relationships, Ambassador Nicolas explained.

“You have sugar industry, you have coffee industry and we can cooperate in those fields. We have engineers and the knowhow. We have many technologies and the climatic situation is more or less the same. And we can cooperate in those fields.”

Ambassador Nicolas further stated that Cuba is rich in some high level biotechnological developments; and it is ready to share that with Ethiopia. “So, we can establish cooperation with Ethiopia in different fields and we think we must do that in the future.”

Speaking about Cuba’s rich experience in education and public health, he said Cuba has the will and commitment to support Ethiopia in whatever way they need. “Cuba has a potential of people with capability, we can establish some kind of cooperation.”

Cuba has offered scholarships for about 5,000 Ethiopian students it was learned.

Source: Ethiopia News Agency