United Nations, New York.- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has a tight agenda in New York in the framework of the high-level segment of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, where Fidel Castro and Raul Castro gave historic speeches in the past.

The presence of Cuban leaders at UN forums has been marked by the Revolution’s commitment to peace, social justice and multilateralism, under the principle of creating a world without poor or oppressed.

Fidel Castro first visited the UN headquarters in September 1960 to attend the 15th Session of the General Assembly, where he confronted the US government’s hostility against the Cuban Revolution.

In his speech at the General Assembly on September 26, Fidel Castro denounced the colonial status imposed by the United States on Cuba before 1959, demanded respect for the peoples’ right to self-determination and condemned Washington’s interference in Latin America and the looting of the region’s wealth by monopolies.

Fidel Castro returned to New York in 1979 to participate in the 34th Session of the General Assembly, when he was the president of the Non-Aligned Movement; in 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the organization; and in 2000, to attend the Millennium Summit.

For his part, Raul Castro visited the UN headquarters in September 2015, when the word was focusing on the bilateral rapprochement that he and then US President Barack Obama announced on December 2014.

At the UN, Raul met with Obama and other world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, and in his speech to the 70th Session of the General Assembly he called for an end to wars and commitment to fight poverty and climate change.

He also warned that Havana and Washington cannot have normal ties as long as part of the island is still occupied by a US military base and the economic, commercial and financial blockade continues.

For his part, Diaz-Canel has insisted that his presidency is the continuity of those who set the course of a socialist project that promotes peace, equality and development in harmony with nature, so he is expected to defend those principles at the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly.