HAVANA, Cuba.- The Cuban Foreign Ministry considered on Saturday that the decoration bestowed upon outgoing Cuban ambassador Eduardo Delgado by the Vatican “ratifies” the “good level” of bilateral relations between the two states.

An official communique by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, circulated in Havana by the Prensa Latina news agency, points out that Delgado received the Knights Grand Cross of the Pian Order.

The note cites the director of Protocol of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Monsignor Nwachukwu Fortunatus, who asserted that the award “constitutes a concrete gesture of acknowledgment of bilateral bonds.”

In turn, the diplomat said that he received the decoration “as an expression of the high level of relations between the Cuban government and people and the Holy See.”