As US negotiators begin talks in Havana, Cuban officials insist they will not reform the communist one-party system or centrally planned economy The highest-level US delegation to visit Havana in decades has opened two days of historic talks with Cuban officials to end a half century of Cold War hostility and restore diplomatic relations. The American mission is headed by Roberta Jacobson, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere and the most senior US diplomat to visit the island for 38 years. The US team arrived the morning after President Barack Obama heralded “a new hope for the future of Cuba” in his State of the Union address, and said that America’s past policy of isolating the communist state has failed. But a senior Cuban diplomat signalled that the US needed to abandon hopes of reforming the one-party regime and its centrally planned economy and cautioned that re-establishing diplomatic ties would not lead to a full relationship between the two countries. That message, delivered as the US mission was in the air en route to Havana, appeared intended to lower expectations of reform there in the wake of December’s declaration of détente by Mr Obama and Raul Castro, the Cuban leader. US officials say they will press human rights concerns on the trip, with Ms Jacobson scheduled to meet Cuban dissidents and religious leaders. But in another dig, Cuban officials countered that they were happy to discuss human rights and would raise their own “concerns” over US police “brutality” in Ferguson and New York, where unarmed black men were killed by white officers last year. If the talks go well, America has been hoping to re-open its embassy building on Havana’s Malecon seafront promenade – currently home to its “interest section” – before the Summit of Americas in April in Panama, where Mr Obama and Mr Castro are expected to meet. Cuban officials sounded less optimistic, saying that re-opening of embassies before Havana was removed from the US state terrorism sponsor list would be “contradictory”. But Cuba also needs to reach a deal as its moribund economy struggles to survive.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 23:49:52 +0000
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