Russia to re-open base in Cuba
Russia to re-open base in Cuba
Thursday, July 17, 2014
MOSCOW: Russia has quietly reached a provisional agreement with Cuba on reopening a big Soviet-era base on the Caribbean island from which it spied in the United States, a Russian security source said on Wednesday.
The proposed move comes as US-Russian relations have reached a post-Cold War low in a dispute over policy towards Ukraine. Confirming a report in the daily Kommersant newspaper which said the deal was agreed in principle during a visit to Cuba last week by President Vladimir Putin, the source told Reuters: “A framework agreement has been agreed.”
At the height of the Cold War, the base at Lourdes, just south of the capital Havana, had up to 3,000 personnel and was the biggest centre Moscow operated abroad for gathering intelligence from radio signals. The base, 250-km from the US coast, was also used to provide communications for Russian ships.
Government and Kremlin officials did not immediately comment. The base was closed in 2001 to cut costs. Discussions about reopening it began several years ago and intensified this year, Kommersant said, as relations with the United States deteriorated over the crisis in Ukraine.
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