Soviet official votes for elections in Cuba

Soviet official votes for elections in Cuba
By John P. Wallach
- San Antonio Light Washington Bureau
Originally published on Sept. 10, 1991.

MOSCOW -- Deputy Soviet Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky said Monday
that Cuba should hold free elections and he hinted that the Soviet Union
would withdraw its economic and political support of Cuba unless those
elections are held.

In an interview on the eve of Secretary of State James Baker's visit
here, Petrovsky said "today people all over the world are deciding their
own future - - and the Cuban people will decide this matter, too. They
should be given this chance."

Petrovsky, asked whether the Soviet government would press Cuban leader
Fidel Castro to hold free elections, replied:

"I'm against imposing our will on these matters, but as far as we are
concerned, we believe democracy must include the election process. This
is our strong belief after what has happened in this country," a
reference to the surge of popular support that helped thwart the Aug.
18-20 coup here.

He also said the Soviet government would not give economic aid to
nations whose regimes were not freely elected.

"This applies to Cuba, too," he said. "Our intention is to de-ideologize
our relations with all countries, putting them on a new footing of
mutual economic advantage while paying close attention to the principle
of freedom of choice for the people of the country."

Castro came to power in 1959 but has never allowed elections. His regime
has been propped up with Soviet subsidies that reached some $3.5 billion
last year.

Petrovsky also made these points:

-- Pressured by the Soviet republics where nuclear weapons are deployed,
Foreign Minister Boris Pankin will propose to Baker that new arms
control talks be held to further reduce the superpowers' nuclear arsenals.

"The climate is very favorable now for moving forward because of the
great changes that are taking place in our country," Petrovsky said. "I
have the strong feeling that the republics want drastic reductions in
the nuclear arsenal as well as a nuclear test ban."

-- The republic of Kazakhstan has "just closed the nuclear testing site
at Semipolatinsk and there is public pressure in the Russian republic to
do the same" at its nuclear testing sites.

He said the Soviet Foreign Ministry has been delegated by the republics
to take over the role of negotiating nuclear arms and other security
accords.

-- The Foreign Ministry is reviving an institution originally proposed
by former Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze for giving the various
republics a direct voice in the formulation of Soviet foreign policy.

The new body will be called the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
and Sovereign States and will have representatives of each of the newly
independent republics as well as those that seek to maintain political
ties to the central government, Petrovsky said.

-- On the Middle East, the Soviet government wants to see an accelerated
timetable for convening an Arab-Israeli peace conference, which
originally had been scheduled for October under joint U.S.-Soviet
sponsorship.

Petrovsky said he disagreed with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir,
who said Friday that the peace conference may have to be delayed because
the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union would require "a certain re-
examination."

Petrovsky said: "We think it is vice versa, precisely the opposite."

-- Asked when the Soviet Union will resume diplomatic relations with
Israel, Petrovsky said Pankin already had sent Shamir a message that the
ties will be resumed before the conference begins.

Soviet official votes for elections in Cuba (22 July 2009)
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/special_reports/51407457.html