Monday, June 5, 2006

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP): Visiting Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said Friday his country was sending 135 medical specialists to treat survivors of the earthquake on Indonesia's Java island.

"A Cuban medical brigade is flying to the Solo airport (in Central Java). They will be arriving (Saturday) morning," he told a press conference after meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

He said the team consisted of 35 specialists, most of whom took part in the relief operations after last year's massive earthquake in Pakistan.

They were to set up two field hospitals equipped with an operating room in two quake-hit areas, he said.

Roque said he was in Indonesia to convey an invitation from Cuban President Fidel Castro for Yudhoyono to attend a summit of the non-aligned movement in Havana in September.

He also said he conveyed to Yudhoyono the Cuban people's condolences over Saturday's disaster, which killed more than 6,200 people.

"President Fidel Castro asked me to convey ... a special message that in this terrible situation, the Indonesian people can count on the Cuban government and on the Cuban people," he said.

Yudhoyono would telephone Castro later in the day to thank him for Cuba's assistance to the quake victims, his spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said.

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