Cuba halts mail deliveries to US

Cuban state postal service Correos de Cuba has halted all mail deliveries to the US “until further notice” following Washington’s new security measures.

Correos de Cuba “until further notice cannot continue to accept in their post offices any kind of item to be sent to the United States,” the company said in a statement on Saturday.

Correos de Cuba said the mail delivery suspension was “the result of new security measures imposed on the aviation authorities of the United States to all countries in the world.”

The decision was made following the return of large amounts of US-bound mail by the third-country airlines to Cuba, Correos de Cuba explained.

Havana has to use third-countries to deliver mail because of the sanctions Washington has imposed against the country.

The postal service between the US and Cuba, which was suspended for more than four decades after the communist revolution on the island, had only resumed in 2009.

Last year the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) adopted new regulations, to counter the alleged threat of terrorists using postal planes to carry out attacks, Monsters and Critics reported.

According to the new regulations, parcels weighing more than 450 grams were to enter the United States in cargo planes.

Cuba had temporarily halted all mail deliveries to the US from November 25, 2010 to December 8, 2010 for packages weighing more than 453 grams. The new ban, however, extends to all types of correspondence, including letters and postcards.