The Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed the official documentation this Tuesday to expel a Cuban diplomat from the United States who physically assaulted a member of the U.S. delegation at the United Nations headquarters in New York, as announced by the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, on the program "Hannity" on Fox News.
The expelled official was identified by an investigation from elTOQUE as Richard Tur de la Concepción, the first secretary of Cuba's Permanent Mission to the UN and in charge of matters related to the Fifth Committee, which handles the budget and administration of the international organization.
"Just before going on air tonight, Secretary Rubio signed the documentation to expel the diplomat who thought he could — the Cuban diplomat, the first secretary of his delegation — who pushed and attempted to assault one of our American diplomats," Waltz declared in front of the cameras.
The announcement was blunt: "He is leaving. He will be on a plane to Havana within the next 24 hours. If you lay a hand on an American here in the United States, President Trump, Secretary Rubio, and I will not tolerate it."
The incident occurred on Tuesday during the annual General Assembly debate on the U.S. embargo against Cuba. While Waltz was delivering his speech, the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla left his seat and approached the podium, prompting the President of the General Assembly, Khalilur Rahman, to briefly suspend the session and order delegates to return to their seats.
In parallel, Tur de la Concepción attempted to snatch the phone from Waltz's spokesperson, J.P. Freire, who was recording the confrontation, and slapped at him. The episode was recorded on video and shared by Waltz himself on his social media.
The U.S. ambassador described the incident as the typical behavior of Cuban diplomats representing a dictatorship, and accused the regime of using propaganda and intimidation to cover up "uncomfortable truths" about its own corruption.
Rodríguez Parrilla, for his part, described Waltz's speech as a "media circus" and shared his own version of the incident on social media, presenting it as a response to the "lies" from Washington.
The episode occurs within the context of escalating tensions between both delegations throughout October. On the 19th of that month, Cuban diplomats led by permanent representative Ernesto Soberón Guzmán staged a repudiation act at the very headquarters of the UN against former political prisoners José Daniel Ferrer and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, whom they shouted at with terms like "terrorists," "liars," and "get out of the UN" during a forum organized by the U.S. mission.
Tur de la Concepción's position in the Fifth Committee was pointed out by Cuban sources in exile as an attempt by the regime to infiltrate that body in order to perpetuate irregular practices from within the international organization.
The annual voting of the General Assembly on the Cuban resolution against the embargo —non-binding and presented every year since 1992— was scheduled for this Wednesday. In 2025, it received only 165 votes in favor, its weakest result in two decades, compared to 187 in 2024. Waltz concluded his remarks on Fox News with a warning to the regime: "One way or another, the Cuban people will see freedom."
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