MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th May, 2020) Moscow and Havana are convinced that global response measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic must be depoliticized, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said in a joint op-ed on Friday.
"In the new international environment created by the SARS-CoV2/COVID-19 pandemic, Russia and Cuba are convinced that the current situation requires cooperation and solidarity and that international depoliticized efforts to develop and share the results of scientific research, assess different countries' experience of preventing the spread of COVID-19, protecting vulnerable groups and work on social welfare will help reduce the duration and mortality caused by the pandemic," Lavrov and Rodriguez Parrilla said in an article that was published in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Granma newspapers.
The op-ed was published to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Russia and Cuba. Lavrov and Rodriguez Parrilla called for international organizations such as the United Nations to have an integral role amid the ongoing epidemiological and economic crisis.
"The governments of both countries are firmly convinced that the UN and the World Health Organization should play a leading role in this matter," the foreign ministers wrote.
Medical professionals from both Russia and Cuba have lent assistance to Italy during the coronavirus disease outbreak. Dozens of doctors from both countries began arriving in Italy in March, as the European country quickly became the epicenter of the pandemic in Europe.
