Hanoi, Sep 8 (Prensa Latina) Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, president of the Vietnam-Cuba Friendship Association, said here today that promoting solidarity with the Caribbean country is a duty of all peace and justice loving peoples.

The call in that sense by the also member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Vietnam and vice president of the National Assembly was one of the messages of support to the island expressed during the Seventh Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba.

This conference will help raise the voices of the peoples worldwide to demand an end to the U.S. blockade on Cuba for more than five decades, she stressed.

The solidarity and support to Cuba is the order that dictate us our heart and conscience, it is also a policy of the Party, the State and the Vietnamese people, she said.

Similar statements were highlighted in the speech by the president of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations, Vu Xuan Hong, who referred to the island's support to this nation in its struggle for the liberation as a symbol of international solidarity.

He exemplified, as well as his compatriot, with the words of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, that "For Vietnam we are ready to give even our own blood."

He added that many activities are carried out in this region to require the cessation of the policy of blockade against the Caribbean nation, "a reason to meet us again here," he said.

The meeting allows more than 200 participants from 18 countries deepen the socio-economic reality of the island, and the relations with the United States, as well as learn the initiatives with a view to strengthening the solidarity with Cuba.

During the opening of the meeting, the Hero of the Republic of Cuba, Antonio Guerrero, thanked on behalf of the Cuban Five the support of the Asia-Pacific friendship associations to the Cuban people in the battle for the release of the five Cubans who were held in U.S. prisons for fighting terrorism.