TRIBUTES have been paid to former Cuban foreign minister Ricardo Alarcon, who died in Havana on Sunday at the age of 84. 

President Miguel Diaz Canel described him as “a great patriot and brilliant diplomat of the Cuban revolution, whose work he defended with passion and solid arguments, making our people proud. All of Cuba feels his departure.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal said he was the master diplomat of his generation and would be remembered with “deep respect, admiration and great affection.”

Mr Alarcon will be remembered as “a true revolutionary, for his anti-imperialism, his loyalty to Fidel and Raul [Castro], to the party and the people,” journalist Humberto Lopez said. 

“Death is not true when the work of life has been well fulfilled,” he added, quoting Cuban revolutionary poet Jose Marti. 

Mr Alarcon served as president of the National Assembly for 20 years and was a key figure in negotiations and dialogue with the United States. 

He played a leading role in organising students in the July 25 guerilla movement’s youth brigade during the revolution, which ousted President Fulgencio Batista in 1955.

The politician was a member of the Cuban Communist Party’s central committee until 2013.