{"id":496666,"date":"2026-05-22T00:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/496666\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T00:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:58:15","slug":"us-cuba-peace-agreement-not-likely-says-rubio-as-aircraft-carrier-arrives-in-caribbean-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/496666\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Cuba peace agreement not likely, says Rubio, as aircraft carrier arrives in Caribbean \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The likelihood of a negotiated, peaceful agreement between the United States \u200cand Cuba<\/a> is not high, US<\/a> secretary of state \u200bMarco Rubio<\/a> said on Thursday as Washington continued its pressure campaign against the Caribbean island\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

Rubio, who was speaking after the United States formally announced murder charges against former Cuban president Raul Castro<\/a> and deployed an aircraft carrier to the Southern Caribbean Sea, said the US always \u200bprefers a negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat remains our preference with Cuba,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI\u2019m \u2060just being honest with you, you know, the \u200clikelihood \u200cof that \u200bhappening, given who we\u2019re dealing with right now, is not high. But if \u2060they have a \u200bchange of heart, you know, \u200bwe\u2019re here. And in the meantime, we\u2019ll keep doing \u200cwhat we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

US president \u200bDonald Trump<\/a> is pushing for \u201cregime change\u201d in Cuba, where communist government has been \u2060in \u200bcharge in Cuba since the late Fidel Castro<\/a> led a revolution in 1959. <\/p>\n

The island is facing a rising crisis as oil supplies for domestic use and power plants have been exhausted after Trump effectively imposed a blockade on fuel shipments from any country. <\/p>\n

Cuba has accepted a US offer of $100 million in humanitarian aid, Rubio said.<\/p>\n

The United States announced the murder charges against Raul Castro on Wednesday, a major escalation that marked \u200ca new low \u2060in relations between the long-time Cold War rivals.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Rubio denied the US was nation-building.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not nation-building,\u201d \u200che told reporters before leaving for a Nato<\/a> ministers meeting in Sweden. \u201cWe \u200bare addressing something that\u2019s directly related to \u200bthe national security of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe USS Nimitz departs a naval base in Busan, South Korea, in 2023. Photograph: Yonhap via AP <\/p>\n

Earlier, the US military\u2019s southern command and a US official said that a US aircraft carrier and its escort warships entered the southern Caribbean Sea on Wednesday and will remain in the region for at least a few days as part of the Trump administration\u2019s campaign to pressure the Cuban government.<\/p>\n

The administration intends to use the USS Nimitz, and its wing of fighter jets, as a show of force, not as a platform for major military operations, as the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford did during the commando raid to seize president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> of Venezuela <\/a>in January, said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.<\/p>\n

The US justice department\u2019s accusations of murder and a conspiracy to kill US citizens against Raul Castro, stem from the fatal downing 30 years ago of two planes over waters off the coast of his country.<\/p>\n

The accusation against Raul Castro, issued in US district court in Miami, also accused five fighter pilots involved in the attack on the planes.<\/p>\n

\"AA file image of Ra\u00fal Castro with his brother Fidel Castro in Havana in 1978. Photograph: Francois Lochon\/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images <\/p>\n

At a news conference in Miami, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and Jason A Reding Qui\u00f1ones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, accused Raul Castro and the pilots of killing four people when the Cuban military shot down the planes on February 24th, 1996. <\/p>\n

The planes were operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group that often scoured the seas for Cubans fleeing the country.<\/p>\n

Fidel Castro took responsibility for the shooting down of the planes shortly after they were brought from the sky, claiming that the organisation had been dropping anti-regime leaflets over Havana in earlier flights. The indictment said Raul Castro was also responsible because he and his brother were \u201cthe final decision-makers\u201d in the Cuban military chain of command.<\/p>\n

The Cuban government, in a statement, rebuked the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is highly cynical for this accusation to be made by the very same government that has murdered nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, far from United States territory, through the disproportionate use of military force,\u201d it said. \u2013 This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>. Additional reporting: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The likelihood of a negotiated, peaceful agreement between the United States \u200cand Cuba is not high, US secretary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,48750,356,18,13,14,57531,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,6587,5,4897,7,8,384],"class_list":["post-496666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-cuba","tag-donald-trump","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fidel-castro","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-marco-rubio","tag-news","tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116615519784253973","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}