Buenos Aires:

Argentina President Javier Milei on Wednesday sacked Foreign Minister Diana Mondino after the country voted at the UN in favor of lifting the six-decade US embargo on Cuba, the presidency said.

“The new foreign minister of Argentina is Mr. Gerardo Werthein,” presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni wrote on X, hours after Argentina joined 186 other UN members who voted in favor of lifting the embargo imposed on communist-run Cuba since 1962.

Werthein was previously Argentina’s ambassador to the United States.

Only two countries, the United States and Israel, both allies of Milei, voted against Wednesday’s resolution, while one country, Moldova, abstained.

Moments after Mondino’s sacking was announced, Milei retweeted a post by a lawmaker who said she was “proud of a government that does not support nor is an accomplice to dictators. Viva #CubaLibre.”

Argentina has traditionally voted against the embargo on Cuba.

Local media quoted foreign ministry sources as saying that while it was awkward diplomatically for Argentina to have opposed the US and Israel, the votes of Cuba and its allies would be needed in any future resolutions on Argentina’s claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, a British territory.

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