Cuba on Thursday "vigorously" rejected its continued inclusion on an annual U.S. list of terror sponsors, saying Washington was merely seeking to justify its decades-old economic embargo on the communist-run nation.

The foreign ministry was reacting to a State Department report released Wednesday that also kept Iran, Syria and Sudan on its list of so-called state sponsors of terrorism

Cuba, which has been on the list since 1982, was cited as harboring U.S. fugitives as well as leftist rebels, though it noted Havana was distancing itself from Basque rebels and had hosted peace talks between Colombian rebels and the government in Santiago.

The Caribbean nation "vigorously rejected the manipulation of such a sensitive issue as international terrorism," which the foreign ministry, in a statement published in local media, said was being used "as an instrument in anti-Cuba policy."

Calling the list "spurious" and "arbitrary," the government statement demanded Cuba be "definitively excluded" from it.

The foreign ministry said Washington uses the terror designation "to justify the embargo, at all costs," after failing to find international support for the economic measure to isolate Havana, in place since 1962.

The government accused Washington itself of using terrorism.

"Cuba is one of those countries, which, to defend its independence and dignity, has suffered for decades the consequences of terrorist acts, organized, financed and carried out from the territory of the United States, which left 3,478 dead and 2,099 disabled " the foreign ministry said.

The only communist-ruled country in the Americas, Cuba does not have full diplomatic relations with the United States.

Washington has had an economic embargo clamped on Havana since 1962, and the neighbors have never moved off a Cold War footing in their ties.