Havana, Cuba.- Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are an essential tool for the economic development of nations and at the same time they are used to promote war, experts from 22 nations, including Cuba, agreed here today.

Every day more countries in the world use the benefits of ICTs to boost economic, political and social transformations, but their use for criminal and anti-peace purposes has transformed the international security landscape, said the Cuban Minister of Communication, Jorge Luis Perdomo, to close the International Forum for the use of ICTs for peaceful purposes.

Cuba advocates that these technologies should be used for the promotion of knowledge, eradicate poverty, social exclusion and not as an instrument to promote war, interventionism, destabilization, subversion, unilateralism or terrorist actions, he said.

Participants in the forum approved a statement saying that it is necessary to start a negotiating process within the framework of the United Nations Organization in order to adopt a legally binding international instrument to eliminate legal gaps in the area of the security of the use of ICTs.

The document also emphasizes that it is imperative to reduce the digital divide in the world and achieve equitable participation of all States in the international governance of the Internet to ensure its safe and stable operation.

On behalf of the International Telecommunications Union, its regional director, Bruno Ramos, praised the development of the Cuban initiative that allowed the exchange of knowledge and offered support for the training of professionals.

For three days the meeting brought together specialists from Barbados, Belize, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Dominica, Ethiopia, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Mosambique, Nicaragua, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, South Africa , Suriname, Venezuela and Vietnam.