HAVANA, Cuba.- The governments of Cuba and East Timor shared on Wednesday in this capital their willingness to boost relations, during a ceremony to celebrate the 10th anniversary of bilateral bonds.

At the Cuban Foreign Ministry, the island’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Marcos Rodriguez, and the Deputy Minister for Foreign Business of East Timor, Alberto Xavier Pereira, cancelled a postal stamp on the occasion of celebrating a decade of diplomatic ties, the Prensa Latina news agency reported.

The two leaders underlined the current level of these bonds and the potential to increase them.

Rodriguez recalled that, since 2004, over 800 Cuban health workers have helped the population of East Timor, and that Havana has contributed to the training of professionals and the eradication of illiteracy.

For his part, Pereira expressed his gratitude for the solidarity received and highlighted that with Cuba’s cooperation his country expects to declare itself free of illiterates by 2013.

The visitor also ratified East Timor’s support for the causes defended by the Caribbean island, like the lifting of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington on Cuba for over half a century now and the demand for the freedom of the five Cuban antiterrorists unfairly condemned in the US.