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Cuba agrees to resume US talks
AFP - Monday, June 1
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Cuba has agreed to resume talks with the United States on migration and direct mail, a US official said here Sunday, as a US-Cuban thaw gathers pace under President Barack Obama's administration.
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The announcement came as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared to attend Tuesday's Organization of American States (OAS) general assembly in Honduras, where Washington and its southern neighbors have been caught in a row over the pace of normalization with Cuba.
The Cuban government informed Washington on Saturday that it "would like to resume migration talks.... (and) engage in talks on direct mail service," the senior State Department official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
"We and the Cubans have to determine a mutually convenient place and time," he added.
The official said the Cubans "also indicated they would like to explore areas of additional dialogue," such as in counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, hurricane and disaster preparedness response.
US officials said May 23 that the Obama administration had proposed to resume the discussions on migration issues, which had been conducted every two years until they were suspended in 2003 by former president George W. Bush.
It was also Washington that recently proposed to resume direct mail, the official said, adding mail has for years, if not decades, been sent between the United States and Cuba through a third country.
The official called the moves a "very positive development and step forward" as the Obama administration pursues engagement with Cuba, which has been under a decades-old US embargo.
He said diplomatic notes were handed to US officials by Jorge Bolanos, the head of the Cuban interests section in Washington.
Cuba has a longstanding interest in seeing migration dialogue progress. The Caribbean nation of more than 11 million is bothered by embarrassing illegal emigration by Cubans across the shark-infested Florida Straits.
Havana, the Americas' only one-party communist regime, has long argued the United States should increase its number of standard legal immigration visas for Cubans.
Since coming to office in January, the Obama administration has called past US policy a failure and moved to repair ties with Cuban President Raul Castro, who officially took over the reins from older brother Fidel last year.
In April, Obama lifted travel and money transfer restrictions on Cuban-Americans with relatives in Cuba.
When asked if the announcement would affect the OAS meeting on Tuesday in San Pedro Sula, the official said "it is hoped that this will be understood in the region in a positive way."
US officials earlier declined to even rule out the possibility of Clinton's skipping the OAS meeting altogether if negotiators fail to agree on terms for bringing Cuba back within the 35-member organization's fold.
The United States wants Cuba to free political prisoners and respect political freedoms for it to participate fully in the OAS, saying Havana should be held to the democratic principles enshrined in the 2001 OAS charter.
Other OAS members say that Cuba can be nudged toward democracy once part of the international body.
Since a popular Obama took office in January, he has raised hopes among many of his southern neighbors that he will soon lift the controversial embargo, even if he insists that Cuba first undertake democratic reforms.
"This is going to be a complicated challenge for her (Clinton) to deal with," said Michael Shifter, an analyst for the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.
"I sense the Obama people are a little bit nervous. I think they're aware that it's a minefield, Cuba," said Shifter.
Clinton was preparing to leave Sunday for El Salvador to attend Monday's inauguration of Mauricio Funes, the first stop on a two-country tour.
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A Cuban worker takes a break next to a mural in Havana. Cuba has agreed to resume talks with the United States on migration and direct mail, a US official said here Sunday, as a US-Cuban thaw gathers pace under President Barack Obama's administration.
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