HAVANA (AP) \u2014 Cuba on Friday welcomed home a diplomat expelled by the United States after an unusually heated confrontation between the two countries\u2019 representatives at the United Nations this week.<\/p>\n
Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Gerardo Pe\u00f1alver posted a photo of Richard Tur de la Concepci\u00f3n, first secretary of Cuba\u2019s U.N. mission, alongside Foreign Ministry officials holding a Cuban flag at Havana\u2019s airport. It was Cuba\u2019s first public response since the U.S. State Department announced it would take action against Tur after he tried to knock a phone out of a U.S. diplomat\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe welcomed the young diplomat home,\u201d Pe\u00f1alver wrote on X, saying Tur had \u201cfirmly and with dignity confronted the disrespectful and provocative behavior\u201d of the U.S. delegation.<\/p>\n
Pe\u00f1alver accused U.S. officials of trying to disrupt a vote on a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo on Cuba and undermine Tur\u2019s candidacy for a position on a U.N. body.<\/p>\n
Tur\u2019s expulsion was announced by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz and later confirmed by the U.S. State Department.<\/p>\n
U.S. officials accused Tur of shoving an American diplomat and trying to snatch the phone he was using to record their confrontation Tuesday during a General Assembly session on the embargo.<\/p>\n
The encounter escalated into a shouting match between Waltz and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n
Cuba said Tur was defending himself after his personal space was invaded.<\/p>\n
The confrontation came as tensions between the two countries have deepened since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an energy blockade on Cuba in January in a bid to force changes to its government and political system. Washington has also threatened military action against the Caribbean nation.<\/p>\n
Pe\u00f1alver said the U.S. delegation\u2019s behavior was part of a strategy to obstruct the vote against what he called the \u201cgenocidal blockade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tur thanked Cuban officials for his reception in a post on X on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cCuba will prevail over Yankee arrogance and anyone who seeks to intimidate us,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
The General Assembly approved Cuba\u2019s resolution Wednesday by a vote of 130-17, with 25 abstentions. The nonbinding measure calling for an end to the U.S. embargo is introduced annually.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAVANA (AP) \u2014 Cuba on Friday welcomed home a diplomat expelled by the United States after an unusually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,153359,157796,2724,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-900209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-ap-politics","tag-ap-world-news","tag-associated-press","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}