CUBA’S Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio has has condemned a report by the Wall Street Journal claiming there is an agreement between China and Cuba for the installation of a special Chinese base in the country to spy on the United States.

Speaking on Thursday, Mr de Cossio pointed out that Cuba is a signatory of the Community of Latin American & Caribbean States’ 2014 “zone of peace” declaration. 

He said: “By virtue of it, we reject any foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Mr de Cossio labelled the US accusation mendacious and unfounded, and said that “they are all fallacies promoted with the perfidious intention of justifying the unprecedented intensification of the blockade, destabilisation and aggression towards Cuba and deceiving public opinion in the United States and the world.”

He went on to denounce the US military base that illegally occupies a portion of the national territory of Cuba in the province of Guantanamo.

The US first seized Guantanamo Bay during the Spanish-American War in 1898.

The US and the then-client Cuban regime signed a lease in 1903 granting Washington permission to use the land as a naval base on an annual rent equivalent to around $4,085.

Since the Cuban revolution no rental cheque has ever been cashed and the Cubans have continued to demand a return of the base.

The infamous prison on the base was opened in January 2002.

The Cuban diplomat said: “Lies of this type have been frequently fabricated by US officials, apparently familiar with the intelligence.”

Mr de Cossio also rebuffed the existence of so-called Havana syndrome —  illness among US diplomatic personnel attributed to sonic attacks  —  along with the “non-existent Cuban military presence in Venezuela, and the lie about the imaginary existence of biological weapons laboratories.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby described the Wall Street Journal report as “not accurate.”