Castro invites Carter to inspect biotech facilities

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

Agence France Presse - May 12, 2002 via Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=9694274


Castro invites Carter to inspect biotech facilities

HAVANA, May 12 (AFP)--President Fidel Castro offered former US
president Jimmy Carter "free and complete access" to personally
inspect Cuba's scientific research centers with experts of his
choosing following last week's US government charge that Havana was
producing biological weapons.

Carter, who arrived on a landmark visit here as the first US
president in or out of office since Castro rose to power in 1959, did
not immediately respond to Castro's offer in his remarks on arrival
at Jose Marti International Airport.

US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security John Bolton, on May 6 said "the US believes that Cuba has at
least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development
effort.  Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue
states."

"We call on Cuba to cease all biological-weapons-applicable
cooperation with rogue states and to fully comply with all of its
obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention," Bolton added in
a talk at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank in
Washington.

Bolton said Cuban President Fidel Castro's regime is, as far as
Washington is concerned, a sponsor of international terrorism, and
recalled that Castro had made official visits to Syria, Iran and
Libya last year. He also said that Cuba has for years provided refuge
for terrorists, especially those from Colombia and Spain.

Cuba has aggressively challenged the charge of involvment in
bioterror.  Castro has called them "Olympic-sized lies."

Bolton "made despicable allegations against Cuba, linking it to
alleged programs of biological weapons production and the transfer of
technology to countries which are enemies of the United States,"
according to the official statement in local print media and on
official radio Saturday.

"Our people, which have been a victim of dirty biological warfare
waged over all these years by different Yankee administrations, will
make plain their determination to fight against these campaigns and
aggressions," the statement added.

Carter, who is scheduled to meet with Castro, other top Cuban
officials, religious group leader and dissidents here, is visiting
Cuba through May 17.

 
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