US removes Cuba from list of countries not fully cooperating on counterterrorism efforts

By Kylie Atwood, Patrick Oppmann and Abel Alvarado, CNN

(CNN) — The US State Department took Cuba off the list of countries that are not fully cooperating with the US on counterterrorism efforts, a State Department official said Wednesday.

Multiple factors contributed to Cuba’s change of status. The US and Cuba resumed law enforcement cooperation in 2023, including on counterterrorism, the official said. Cuba also no longer found itself refusing to engage with Colombia on extradition requests for National Liberation Army (ELN) members because Colombia’s attorney general announced that arrest warrants would be suspended.

As a result of these changes, “the Department determined that Cuba’s continued certification as a ‘not fully cooperating country’ was no longer appropriate,” the official said.

The State Department still includes North Korea, Iran, Syria and Venezuela on the list of countries that are not cooperating on counterterrorism efforts.

While the Cuban government celebrated the State Department’s decision, it also called for the US to remove the country from another list that designates it as a sponsor of terrorism.

“The US has just admitted what is known to everyone: that Cuba collaborates fully with efforts against terrorism,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla wrote on X. “All political manipulation of the issue should cease and our arbitrary and unjust inclusion on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism should end.”

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