Cuban authorities have condemned the presence of a nuclear-powered submarine at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, describing it as a "provocative escalation of tensions", weeks after Washington said the island hosts a Chinese spy base.
"The presence of a nuclear submarine in the Gulf at this moment makes us wonder what military reason is behind this action in this peaceful region of the world," the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Washington has not confirmed that there is a submarine in the naval base, writes Reuters.
The ministry did not specify whether the submarine was armed. She was said to have been at the base from July 5 to 8.
The White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"It's hard to know what the motivation was," said William LeoGrande, a professor at American University in Washington, pointing to possible technical issues or a response to recently expressed concerns about China.
"Overall, this is an incident that points to the fact that Cuba has once again found itself between the superpowers in what appears to be the emergence of a new Cold War," he told Reuters.
Cuba has long urged the US to close its 121-year-old naval base on the eastern part of the island, along with the military prison Washington established there in 2002.
Critics say the Guantanamo prison has been used to arbitrarily detain and torture people suspected of terrorism.
In June, Havana and Beijing rejected allegations by US officials that China was using Cuba as a spy base.
The United States has presented no evidence of such a claim.
The statement of the Cuban Ministry warns of the dangers of nuclear submarines and armed forces circulating throughout the Caribbean, and adds that American military bases throughout the region threaten the sovereignty of those nations.
The ministry again called on the US to end its military presence on the island, saying it only serves to "violate Cuba's sovereign rights" and detain, torture and systematically violate human rights.
It adds that US military leaders have publicly announced plans to use their "warfare" to pursue their ambitions regarding the region's natural resources.
The US imposed a trade embargo on Cuba more than 60 years ago.
Cuba's foreign minister accused Washington of bearing "direct responsibility" for fueling Cuba's biggest street protests since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
During the economic crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, tens of thousands of Cubans immigrated to the US.
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