London - Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel expressed gratitude to the British people for the signs of friendship and affection professed towards their country in these almost 60 years of revolutionary process.

On a transit visit to this capital after concluding an international tour, Díaz-Canel held a meeting on Tuesday with members of the Solidarity Campaign with Cuba in the United Kingdom and union representatives.

During the exchange at the residence of the Embassy of Havana in London, the president updated the members of that movement and compatriots settled here on the situation in the largest of the Antilles and their relations with this European nation.

In this line he stressed that the most important process that the island is experiencing at this time is constitutional reform, with enormous popular participation.

It is a 'robust' constitutional project, he stressed, and affirmed that the Cuban law of laws that will finally be approved and referendum will be even more vigorous and modern.

Regarding bilateral ties, he stressed that they were revitalized in 2016 with the visit made to Havana by the then British Chancellor, Philip Hammond, and current Minister of Finance.

Precisely, Hammond, considered the second figure of the Government of the United Kingdom, received the eve the president of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba.

In his opinion, the main obstacle in the development of these links is the economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States against its country for more than half a century, whose extraterritorial measures affect financial flows and investments.

He thanked the support of the solidarity movement of the United Kingdom to break the prolonged US policy of hostility, which, he reported, was exacerbated with the arrival at the White House of Donald Trump.

He also took the opportunity to recognize the support of the British trade unions, and in general of the solidarity movement, in the struggle for the release of the five Cuban anti-terrorists who endured unjust sentences in US prisons.

Diaz-Canel also met the leader of the Labor Party of the United Kingdom, Jeremy Corbyn, with whom he examined the relations between the British Social Democratic group and the Communist Party of Cuba, the sources said.

Since 2015 under the leadership of Corbyn, the Labor Party moved notably towards more progressive positions on the political spectrum, and in the elections held in 2017 it won 261 seats in the House of Commons, out of a total of 650.

Earlier, in the Palace o Westminster, the Cuban leader spoke with Baroness Angela Basildone and a group of British parliamentarians. He also met Karen Lee, coordinator of the Multiparty Group for Cuba in the House of Commons.