• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• Politics and Government
• 11 / 14 / 2006

Timor Leste Prime Minister Jose Ramon Horta expressed gratitude to Cuba on Monday for providing medical training to almost 500 young people from that small insular Southeast Asian state.

In a rally in the capital, Dili, with relatives of the students, Ramos Horta said that such cooperation and solidarity is a beautiful gesture of friendship with the people of Timor Leste.

"Cuba has given the opportunity to these youth to prepare themselves, be better men and women, and return to their homeland in 2012 to work for the welfare and health of the people of Timor Leste," the prime minister said.

He recalled the first meeting between President Xanana Gusmao and Fidel Castro in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2003, in which "the Cuban leader offered the Timor Leste government this possibility that has become a reality today."

Those students are included in the New Physician Training Program in centers of the Cuban provinces of Granma, Ciego de Avila, Havana, and Pinar del Rio, and Isla de la Juventud special municipality.

Ramos Horta also noted the work of almost 30 Cuban doctors and teachers in the 65 sub-districts of this small country of almost one million inhabitants, in what he called a very commendable and exemplary effort.

Source: Prensa Latina