BY PAUL HAVEN, Havana*
Cuba protests tighter U.S. airport screening

Cuba summoned the top U.S. diplomat on the island Tuesday to protest extra screening for Cuban citizens flying into the United States, calling the measure a ``hostile action'' meant to justify America's trade embargo.Josefina Vidal Ferreiro [1], director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry's North American affairs office, said the new security controls were ``discriminatory and selective.''``We categorically reject this new hostile action by the government of the United States against Cuba,'' she told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview.Vidal Ferreiro said she lodged the protest in an afternoon meeting with Jonathan Farrar, the head of the U.S. Interest Section, which Washington maintains in Cuba instead of an embassy.

Cuba 's top diplomat in Washington delivered a similar message to State Department officials earlier in the day, she said.

The United States imposed the airline security measures Monday after an apparent attempt by a Nigerian to blow up a jet as it neared Detroit .  Citizens of Cuba , Iran , Sudan and Syria —nations the United States considers state sponsors of terrorism -- are among those who face extra scrutiny.

Cuba has been on that list since the 1980s, but has maintained its inclusion had more to do with the United States ' antagonistic policy toward it than with evidence it sponsors terrorism. The U.S. and Cuba have been at odds since soon after Fidel Castro took power in 1959.

The United States has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for 47 years.

Ferreiro said Cuba has a spotless record against terrorism and that Washington maintains a double standard because it harbors individuals Cuba considers to have committed terrorist acts on the island.  State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called Cuba 's inclusion on the terror sponsor list justified: "Cuba is a designated state sponsor of terrorism, and we think it's a well-earned designation given their long-standing support for radical groups in the region.'' He highlighted its support for Colombian rebel groups.

[1] Josefina de la C. Vidal Ferreiro was one of 14 Cuban diplomats expelled from the US in May 2003 for espionage.  Seven of these diplomats served at the Cuban mission to the United Nations (CMUN) and the others at the Cuban Interests Section, where Vidal Ferreiro served in the senior diplomatic title of “First Secretary.” She is also among the six Castro intelligence officers who contributed to Julia Sweig’s book, Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground.(2002) Among the spies Sweig thanks in her acknowledgements are Jose Antonio Arbesu, Ramon Sanchez Parodi, Fernando Garcia Bielsa, Hugo Yedra, Jose Gomez Abad and Josefina Vidal.

* For The Associated Press / January 6, 2010
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