UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP)—The UN General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution calling for an end to the United States’ embargo against Cuba, despite strong opposition from Washington.

The non-binding resolution, which has been passed each year since 1992, calls for “ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

It passed Wednesday with 165 votes for and seven against, including the United States, Israel and Ukraine, with 12 abstentions. The majority was lower than in previous years, when votes in favor have approached 190.

Condemning the US embargo in place against the Communist-run island since 1962, the resolution underlines the “adverse effects of such measures on the Cuban people.”

Washington’s envoy to the UN, Mike Walz, had strongly opposed the text.

“Please stop repeating this propaganda that allows the regime to then go back and have an excuse for its own failures,” the ambassador said in a debate Tuesday.

Hitting back, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez labeled Walz’s remarks “threatening, arrogant, deceitful and cynical.”

He called on the US to at least suspend or make humanitarian exceptions to the embargo due to the impact of Hurricane Melissa, which this week tore through Cuba and neighboring countries.

Several nations — notably Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — abstained from Wednesday’s vote over Cuba’s support for Russia in its war with Ukraine.

The US embargo on Cuba is one of the world’s longest-standing unilateral sanction regimes, souring ties between the countries for several decades.

In July, the United States upped its pressure on Havana by announcing unprecedented sanctions against Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel for his role “in the Cuban regime’s brutality toward the Cuban people.”