Saturday, March 11, 2006

Cuba offers 1,000 scholarships for medical students

Wednesday, February 08, 2006
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C08%5Cstory_8-2-2006_pg7_35

ISLAMABAD: Cuba has offered 1,000 scholarships to Pakistan for medical studies.

This offer was made by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque during a meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday.

The Cuban foreign minister said that his country would be ready to receive 1,000 Pakistani students by the end of the year.

The Cuban foreign minister also called on President Pervez Musharraf at Army House. Musharraf told him that Pakistan is committed to the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). “Pakistan is committed to working with other NAM members to make it a dynamic movement capable of facing the challenges of the 21st century,” Musharraf said.

The Cuban foreign minister delivered an official invitation from President Fidel Castro to Musharraf to participate in the NAM summit in Cuba in September. He underlined the desire for the expansion of bilateral relations between the two countries. The Cuban foreign minister told Aziz that his country would soon open its embassy in Islamabad. He said that the Cuban medical mission working in the quake-hit areas will train Pakistani personnel to take up the job in the earthquake-hit areas following its departure. Cuba will also donate equipment to Pakistan, he said.

He also met Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri. Both agreed that a just and equitable economic order, democratic reforms of the United Nations and “south-south cooperation” were the key issues for the forthcoming NAM summit.

They also agreed that the NAM countries should work closely at international forums to promote common positions on various issues.

3 comments:

Himself said...

well, this move makes so little strategic sense to me that I can only imagine that it means that Castro is really concerned about the health of Pakistani people! To offer aid to a country ruled by an American puppet - or am I missing something about Pakistan? Is there some enormous shift in alignment happening now that the US is cozying up to India or something?

Frank Partisan said...

It's called solidarity and internationalism. It is a gift to the workers and peasants.

State to state relations is never a pure thing.

Himself said...

Are you really that stupid? There is no shortage of people in the world needing medical assistance. Giving this aid to Pakistan in particular must have some kind of rationale - I'm just at a lost to say what it is.