US denies considering removing Cuba from terror list

The US government denied on Thursday that it is considering removing Cuba from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland rejected the idea presented in an article published in the Boston Globe, which said that several members of Congress and other top officials had made the decision to remove Cuba from the list, and had relayed that idea to Secretary of State John Kerry.

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"I saw that report. Let me say firmly here it is incorrect," Nuland said at a press conference, according to the Latin America Herald Tribune. "This department has no current plans to remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list."

She made note that the State Department reviews the situation of each country every year to determine if it deserves to remain on the list, be put on it, or be removed from it, the Tribune continued. Nuland also said that this will be done again this year in a report that will be delivered to Congress in April.

The Miami Herald reported that Washington's director of the US Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee Mauricio Claver-Carone said taking Cuba off the list would be equal to a "scandalous" concession to the communist government.

Claver-Carone writes a blog called Capitol Hill Cubans, and referenced the Globe's story, which he said noted that George W. Bush's administration removed North Korea from the list in 2008. He found it ironic "because apparently that has worked wonders in tempering the North Korean regime's criminal behavior."