The agreement was signed by the official in charge of businesses of the American Embassy in La Habana, Jeffrey DeLaurentis and the chief of the National Bureau of Hydrography and Geodesy (ONHG), Cándido Regalado Gómez.
The official in charge of businesses of the American Embassy in La Habana, Jeffrey DeLaurentis and the chief of the National Bureau of Hydrography and Geodesy (ONHG), Cándido Regalado Gómez/Rodolfo BLANCO CUÉ/sdl
Published in telesurtv.net, translated by Lisbeth Mechter exclusively for SouthFront
The signed agreement aims to protect the environment, safeguard marine areas and join efforts in regards to nautical cartography, hydrographic services and the monitoring and forecast of tides and currents.
Both, Cuban and American governments signed on Friday an understanding memorandum aiming to improve the security of sea navigation of both nations, a couple of days before the visit of the US president Barack Obama to the island.
In regards to the arrangement, the Cuban representative, Regalado Gómez said that this agreement “will allow the island to have access to the interchange of technologic information and the necessary equipment to carry out this processes as well”. “We trust that this document will eliminate such difficulties and at the same time, the cited agreement will be the beginning of a sustained process for cooperation in the interchange of information and the development of methods, methodologies and technologies, the interchange of experiences and good practices and other activities related to Hydrography that would benefit both nations and the region too”, Regalado Gómez stated.
DeLaurentis added that this memorandum “recognizes the interest of both countries to recover the safety of navigation”.
As pointed above, the agreement takes place just a few days before of the official visit of the North American President to Cuba as part of the agenda that both nations have been holding after, on December 2014, the president of the US and the president of Cuba Raúl Castro announced their decision of restoring their diplomatic relations, fact that became real on July 20th, 2015, when the Cuban Embassy was re-opened in Washington and the re-opening of the US Embassy in Cuba on August 14 last year.
In regards to the official visit of Barack Obama to the Caribbean island, the last North American President that visited Cuba was Calvin Coolidge, in 1928.