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Cuba allows visit with jailed American 'spy'
AFP - Friday, January 14
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HAVANA (AFP) - – Cuba allowed a senior US diplomat to visit an accused American spy whose prolonged incarceration has become a major sticking point in efforts to work towards normalized relations.
But on a day of mixed signals for tortuous US-Cuba ties, a later meeting between the same State Department official, Roberta Jacobson, and Cuban opposition leaders was denounced by Havana as an "open provocation."
Alan Gross, a 61-year-old State Department contractor, was arrested in December 2009 on suspicion he was a US spy who was distributing cell phones and laptops to opponents of President Raul Castro's communist regime.
Staff from the unofficial US mission in Havana have been allowed access to Gross, but Jacobson, deputy assistant secretary of state for Latin America, is by far the highest-ranking diplomat to meet him thus far.
The State Department confirmed the Thursday morning prison visit, while the White House reiterated its call for the immediate release of Gross, who is yet to be charged with any crime despite being detained for longer than a year.
"US government officials have repeatedly raised our deep concern regarding Mr. Gross with Cuban authorities and have urged all those who interact with the Cuban government to do the same," White House spokesman Mike Hammer told AFP.
The United States say Gross worked for a non-government organization contracted by the State Department to supply computer and communications equipment to civil society groups in Cuba.
Arturo Valenzuela, the top US State Department official for Latin America, said recently that Washington had made it "very clear" to Havana that it will be difficult to reach any major agreements as long as Cuba is holding Gross.
The United States cut off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro assumed power after overthrowing the American-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
Recent administrations in Washington have tried to isolate the Castro regime diplomatically while enforcing a 48-year trade embargo that Havana says has put a stranglehold on the island's economy.
Cuba lies just 90 miles (145 kilometers) off the Florida coast, but long gone are the menacing days of the Cuban missile crisis, when tensions over the island brought two nuclear-armed superpowers -- the United States and the former Soviet Union -- to the brink of war.
Raul Castro has announced plans to dramatically reform the Caribbean island's shattered economy, but until all political prisoners are freed and individual freedoms are increased, a major shift in US policy is unlikely.
Obama has freed Cuban Americans to travel to Cuba and send remittances to relatives there. He also allowed telecommunications agreements to go forward and resumed a dialogue on immigration with Havana.
But he cannot lift the trade embargo unless Congress approves it, and with large Republican gains in November's mid-term elections, there appears to be little appetite for such a move.
Lacking diplomatic relations, Havana and Washington do consult regularly on issues such as drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
Jacobson was in Havana for a fourth round of talks on immigration, which were relaunched at a meeting in New York in July 2009 after a six-year hiatus.
The senior official also met Thursday with top Cuban opposition figures, including Elizardo Sanchez, who heads the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCHRNR).
The prominent opposition group is officially banned but is tolerated by the regime of Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel at Cuba's helm in 2006 and was officially elected president two years later.
Cuba's foreign ministry denounced the meeting as an "open provocation" and an "offense against our people" intended to stir up the forces of counter-revolution and destabilize the regime.
It "confirms once again that there are no changes in the policy of subversion and interference by the United States in Cuban internal affairs," a statement said.
A meeting 16 months ago between the Cuban opposition and one of Jacobson's predecessors drew a similarly angry response.
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