Cuba plays down U.S. contacts after attacks

By Reuters

HAVANA, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Communist-run Cuba on Wednesday played down the importance of fresh diplomatic contacts with its traditional political arch-enemy, the United States, in the wake of last week's attacks on New York and Washington.

"These contacts lack any special significance and have not been of a secret or unusual nature," the Foreign Ministry said.

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday contacts with Cuba had picked up in recent days in the search for information about those behind the crashing of hijacked planes into the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon.

But the Foreign Ministry said in a statement they were "sporadic contacts, limited to a minimum of subjects."

Those topics, it said, included the organization of memorial acts for U.S. victims, and other subjects habitually discussed between the two countries like drugs and immigration.

Cuba also rapped the United States for belligerence in its reaction to the attacks. President George W. Bush has said the United States will retaliate against the perpetrators and nations that protect them with what he calls a war on terrorism.

"Any honest person has the right to wonder if they are really seeking justice, or using the painful tragedy to impose methods, prerogatives and privileges that would lead to the tyranny of the world's most powerful state, without any restriction, over all the earth's peoples," a separate communique, probably written by President Fidel Castro, said.

Cuba has condemned terrorism and offered both condolences and medical aid to the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks left nearly 6,000 people missing or dead. But it has also kept up a less welcome message for Washington that its own use of "terrorist" tactics in the past is partly to blame.

The second communique also berated other nations for not counteracting the "fascist and terrorist tendency" in moves like the possible overturning of a U.S. regulation prohibiting officials from planning assassinations.

"These methods would lead the planet into the law of the jungle, stain the United States, destroy its prestige and encourage hatreds which are the cause of so much pain and sadness," it said.

The United States has singled out Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be in Afghanistan, as a prime suspect in the coordinated strikes.

09-19-01

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