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                   Russia, Cuba Agree on Security Cooperation

   by VOA News

   Russia's Security Council and Cuba's Commission for National Security
   and Defense have signed a memorandum on cooperation and agreed to
   establish a joint working group, the secretary of the Russian Security
   Council said Wednesday.
   "The situation in the world is changing fast and it is dynamic. That's
   why we will need the ability to react to it promptly," Nikolai
   Patrushev said.
   A Cuban delegation led by Col. Alejandro Castro Espin arrived in Moscow
   on Tuesday and held a meeting with the leaders of the Russia's Foreign
   Intelligence Service (SVR), Russia's primary external intelligence
   agency.
   The delegation is also scheduled to meet with representatives from the
   Federal Security Service (FSB), the principal security agency of the
   Russian Federation and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's
   Committee of State Security, or KGB.
   "Russia and Cuba need an effective cooperation tool to respond to
   sensitive issues. The memorandum may define priorities for cooperation
   to ensure effective security of both states," said Castro Espin, who is
   Cuban leader Raul Castro's son.
   Patruschev has been linked in recent years to the rapprochement between
   Moscow and Havana. In the 1970s, he worked with Russian President
   Vladimir Putin in the KGB.
   Cold War redux
   Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, who won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom
   of Thought in 2010, told martinoticias.com the intelligence sharing can
   be seen as "a resumption of the Cold War in retaliation for recent
   moves by NATO and the United States with respect to Ukraine."
   "They [NATO and the U.S.] are now physically close to the Russian
   border, and they [the Russians], in retaliation, have appeared
   somewhere close to U.S. territory to compensate for this development,"
   he said.

   "Russia will resume its position on the island of Cuba [in an attempt
   to compete with] the U.S. for influence over Central and South America
   and [to make inroads within] the United States," Fariñas Hernandez
   said.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/russia-cuba-agree-on-security-cooperation/1914812.html