The Unit­ed States says it has not re­cent­ly held dis­cus­sions with Saint Lu­cia on in­ter­na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion, in­clud­ing arrange­ments in­volv­ing Cu­ba.

In a state­ment post­ed on so­cial me­dia, the US gov­ern­ment said it re­spects the sov­er­eign de­ci­sions of coun­tries re­gard­ing the ed­u­ca­tion of their cit­i­zens. It added that it con­tin­ues to call for an end to what it de­scribed as ex­ploita­tion and forced labour linked to Cu­ba’s over­seas med­ical mis­sions pro­gramme.

The state­ment fol­lowed pub­lic con­cern af­ter com­ments by Saint Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J Pierre, who said Wash­ing­ton had in­struct­ed his gov­ern­ment to dis­con­tin­ue send­ing stu­dents to Cu­ba to study med­i­cine. Speak­ing at the Sec­ond World Con­gress on Racial and Eth­nic Health Dis­par­i­ties, Pierre said, “Many of our doc­tors got trained in Cu­ba, and now the great Unit­ed States has said we can’t do that any longer.”

Speak­ing at a Cab­i­net press brief­ing on Mon­day, Pierre said there are no plans to with­draw Saint Lu­cian med­ical stu­dents cur­rent­ly study­ing in Cu­ba. “The stu­dents, those who are in Cu­ba, will con­tin­ue to be in Cu­ba. There’s no im­mi­nent with­draw­al of stu­dents,” he said.

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment said it has re­ceived no such di­rec­tive from the Unit­ed States and con­firmed that the long-stand­ing prac­tice of send­ing na­tion­als to Cu­ba for med­ical train­ing re­mains un­changed.