Responding to recent reports that the Cuban government had sent troops to Syria to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Cuban government has called the news unfounded and irresponsible.

According to Reuters, foreign ministry official Gerardo Penalver released a statement on Saturday in which he "categorically denies and refutes the irresponsible and unfounded information regarding the supposed presence of Cuban troops in the Syrian Arab Republic.”

Reports of Cuba’s alleged involvement in Syria came from the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies on Tuesday. According to the institute, "Raul Castro has expressed publicly his support for the Syrian regime and his solidarity with Russian and Iranian objectives in the Middle East." The academic center issued an unconfirmed report in which an unspecified source informed that Cuban troops had been spotted in Syria "in support of Syria’s dictator Assad and Russian involvement in that country."

Fox News later confirmed this information, reporting that a U.S. official had told them that Cuban paramilitary as well as special forces units were on the ground in Syria and that Cuban troops may have been training in Russia prior to this.

Upon the news of the Cuban forces supposedly aiding Assad, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley immediately demanded to know whether President Obama had confronted the Cuban government on the issue. The Hill reported Grassley wrote a letter to the President that read, "It’s disconcerting that in light of your new relationship with Cuba, the Castro regime has chosen to align with Russia and Iran in supporting Assad in Syria."

On Thursday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the U.S. government had no evidence that the reports were true.

Icy tensions between the United States and Cuba have thawed recently, as President Obama removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in an effort to normalize relations between the two nations.