US keeps Cuba on list of terror sponsor countries

Washington, May 1 (EFE) The US government has kept Cuba on the list of states that sponsor terrorism, the State Department said.

Cuba remained on the terror list because 'the Cuban government continued to provide safe haven to several terrorists', the department said in its annual report on terrorism released Thursday.

Members of terrorist organisations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Spain's Basque terrorist organisation (ETA) continue to operate in Cuba, the department said.

ETA has killed more than 800 people since it started its campaign in 1968 for an independent Basque state in parts of northern Spain and southwestern France.

The leftist FARC guerrillas have been fighting a succession of Colombian governments for more than four decades.

The Cuban government has continued to allow several US fugitives belonging to groups like Boricua Popular Army and Black Liberation Army to live in its territory, it said.

The designation as a state sponsoring terrorism results in sanctions, including being prohibited from buying weapons from the US or getting economic assistance from Washington.