US votes against UN resolution condemning US embargo on Cuba

Author: AP
Published:
FILE – In this Friday, April 7, 2017 file photo, United States ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley listens as Syria’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Mounzer Mounzer speaks during a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria at United Nations headquarters. On Wednesday, April 19, 2017, Haley had a message for North Korea: “We’re not trying to pick a fight so don’t try and give us one.” (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) The United States has voted against a U.N. resolution condemning America’s economic embargo against Cuba, reversing last year’s abstention by the Obama administration and reflecting worsening U.S.-Cuban relations.

The resolution was overwhelmingly approved in the 193-member General Assembly Wednesday by a vote of 191-2, with Israel joining the U.S. in voting “no.”

MORE: US says it will abstain on UN vote on Cuba embargo

Last October, then-President Barack Obama decided to abstain for the first time in 25 years following the restoration of U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba in July 2016. Relations were broken in 1961 after Fidel Castro took power and installed a communist government in Cuba.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said before the vote that the U.S. will vote against the embargo resolution “as long as the Cuban people continue to be deprived of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

MORE: Obama scrapping ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy for Cubans

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