Cuba stresses int'l cooperation on cybersecurity amid easing US restrictions

HAVANA (Xinhua) - Cuban First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said Cuba will continue to cooperate with other countries on cybersecurity as Washington is easing technological restrictions against the island nation, the official daily Granma reported Saturday.

Cubans should bear in mind that the US blockade on Cuba had limited the access to financing, technologies, infrastructures, software and applications for decades, Diaz-Canel said at the closure of a three-day technology conference Friday.

"(US President Barack) Obama's appreciation on the failure of that policy and the announcement that they will carry out investments in the telecommunications sector, for the Cuban people to access them, are a recognition of that," said the vice president, the first in the line of succession behind Cuban leader Raul Castro.

Cuban should advance more in the computerization process as the United States may change its tactics with similar purposes of destroying the country's revolution through "the subversive penetration in the society," he said, citing Washington's espionage plans to governments and people by using high-tech means in a "perverse way."

"The right to the Internet is accompanied as well by the duties of citizens and institutions toward the society, in regard to an appropriate use, and according to the law," he said. "It supposes as well the responsibility of the control agencies, looking after the defense of the country and its integrity."

The just-concluded technology conference was aimed at promoting computerization and cybersecurity in Cuba to boost economic and social growth, at a time when Washington is easing restrictions on the trade of computer technology and softwares with the country.

The gathering attracted over 11,000 specialists who hoped to hammer out new national guidelines as easing import restrictions increase average Cubans' access to the Internet.