Marco Rubio calls Cuba a national security threat, Havana calls him liar

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared that Cuba poses an ongoing national security threat to the United States and suggested that there are few chances of a peaceful agreement. His comments came as the US charged Cuba's former President Raúl Castro with murder over the 1996 downing of two planes, which resulted in the death of US nationals. Rubio told reporters on Thursday that the island nation maintains close ties to foreign adversaries Russia and China.

“Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that’s in place,” said Rubio, rejecting suggestions of “nation building.” The issue is one of “national security”.He asserted that Cuba has gotten used to waiting out US economic sanctions. “They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious, we’re very focused.”

US President Donald Trump said that he may take direct action against the island. He claimed that many US presidents wanted to intervene in Cuba for decades, but it looks like he will be “the one that does it”, adding that he would be “happy” to do so.

Cuba accused Rubio of lying

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez accused Rubio of propagating "lies" and said that the island never posed a threat to the US, and said it was a stunt to “instigate a military aggression”. Rubio announced the arrest and green card revocation of Adys Lastres Morera, the sister of a high-ranking executive of GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA), a mega conglomerate run by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Cuba is suffering from a crippling power crisis and accepted a US offer of $100m (£74.4m) in humanitarian aid. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Monday that any US military action against Cuba would lead to a “bloodbath”

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Will Venezuelan model work on Cuba?

Analysts suggest that the US will see a Venezuela model of intervention in Cuba, when President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were kidnapped and presented to the US Federal Court on charges of “narco-terrorism”. “Everyone in Cuba is trained militarily and … incorporated into this system of national defence,” Yaffe, a professor of Latin American political economy at the University of Glasgow, and host of the podcast titled Cuba Analysis, said to Al Jazeera. Yaffe claims that the Venezuelan model won't work in Cuba, while abducting Maduro, US forces faced resistance from guards who were Cubans. The narrative from Cuban leaders is that it was 32 Cubans; now they have to face 10 million Cubans. Cuba has a relatively ageing military, but the strength is in its massive asymmetry and its foundational defensive strategy known as the “War of the Whole People”. Cuba has 45,500 to 49,000 active-duty personnel across the navy, army and air force, and 1.14 million personnel, making up the third-largest paramilitary reserve in the world for engaging in guerrilla warfare.

China on Friday said that it “firmly supports” Cuba and urged the US to de-escalate tensions and “stop threatening force”. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods - which border on violence - be used against either former or current heads of state.”