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U.S. and Cuba Meet for Talks to Fully Restore Diplomatic Ties
U.S. and Cuba Meet for Talks to Fully Restore Diplomatic Ties
(about 11 hours later)
MEXICO CITY — The United States and Cuba are closer than ever to reaching an agreement to fully restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies, officials in both countries said as negotiators met Thursday in Washington for another round of talks to iron out remaining details and discuss possible dates.
Despite a wave of optimism, United States and Cuban negotiators meeting in Washington on Thursday could not reach an accord on re-establishing long-fractured diplomatic ties but agreed to keep talking on Friday.
The move toward full diplomatic relations broken decades ago during the Cold War has been seen as a key step toward ending hostilities and normalizing ties with a historic opponent that once agreed to allow Soviet nuclear missiles on its soil and repelled an invasion by American-backed insurgents.
Representatives from both nations met all day at the State Department to resolve a checklist of issues before they could elevate their current diplomatic outposts known as “interests sections” into full-fledged embassies and exchange ambassadors for the first time in more than half a century.
Yet progress toward full diplomatic relations has not gone as swiftly as initially hoped in December, when President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba first committed to restoring ties in a surprise announcement.
American and Cuban officials would not discuss the talks but a State Department notice suggested officials would speak to the news media after Friday’s round.
Now, with a number of obstacles out of the way or close to it, particularly for the Cubans, the talks have reached the most optimistic point after four rounds of conversations in Havana and Washington.
In recent days, diplomats on both sides had said they believed an agreement was near, while noting they still had certain issues to resolve.
“I’m trying not to sound too Pollyannaish,” said a senior State Department official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about closed-door diplomatic matters. “But I do think we’re closer than we have been in the past, and I think my counterparts are coming up here with a desire to get this done.
The United States has been insisting on assurances that its diplomats could move around Cuba freely and speak to whomever they wish, which the Cuban government often interprets as designed way to strengthen the dissident movement.
“But equally,” the official added, “we have certain requirements that we need met, so we just have to see whether we can get there in this round of talks. I certainly hope so.”
The Americans also wanted guarantees that Cubans visiting the embassy in Havana would not be harassed by the police guarding it and that diplomatic shipments would not be subjected to tampering.
Gustavo Machin, a top Cuban diplomat who has been part of his country’s delegation at the talks, told reporters in Havana on Monday, “We don’t see obstacles but rather issues to resolve and discuss.”
Cuba had been slow to agree to full diplomatic relations until it found a bank willing to handle its accounts in the United States and until it was removed from the American government’s list of states that sponsor international terrorism.
The governments closed their embassies after President Dwight Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations on Jan. 3, 1961, in response to a demand by Cuba’s new leader, Fidel Castro, that the American Embassy staff be significantly reduced. Mr. Castro called the embassy a spy outpost, part of an American plot to topple the Communist government he installed after the 1959 revolution.
This week, American officials said Cuba had found a bank and next week, it officially comes off the terrorism list, an order President Obama made last month but required a 45-day review period to take effect.
In 1977, during a period of somewhat warmer relations, the two nations agreed to open “interest sections” in their respective capitals, with no ambassadors and limited diplomatic activity, and technically run under the auspices of the Swiss government.
This fourth round of talks — by Cuba’s count, it is the third, so clearly they do not agree on even small issues — took place five months after the United States and Cuba vowed to restore full diplomatic relations ruptured more than five decades ago during the Cold War.
Officials in Havana and Washington agree that having full-fledged embassies and exchanging ambassadors could accelerate the path to normal relations. While the overall United States trade embargo, begun under Mr. Eisenhower and strengthened under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, remains in place, Mr. Obama has taken several steps to undercut it and increase trade with and travel to Cuba as a way to support the Cuban people and weaken the Castro government’s arguments that the nation’s forced isolation by the United States is the cause of its economic deterioration.
Both Mr. Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba have publicly said they wanted embassies but working out the details has been taking some time.
For Cuba, the chief impediments to re-establish normal diplomatic relations have been removed.
The United States broke relations with Cuba during the last days of the Eisenhower administration, on Jan. 3, 1961, growing concerned about a Communist beachhead 90 miles from its shores. The move came after Fidel Castro ordered a drastic reduction in the staff of the American Embassy, which he considered a spy outpost that was part of a plot to topple him.
With the help of Treasury Department officials, Cuban diplomats have found a bank in the United States willing to handle accounts for their interests section in Washington, which it hopes to elevate to full embassy status but for now handles limited matters like visa processing.
Since 1977, during a period of somewhat warmer relations, the two nations agreed to open interest sections in their capitals, with no ambassadors and limited diplomatic activity and technically run under the auspices of the Swiss government.
Stonegate, a small Florida bank, has agreed to take the account, but a spokesman said the bank’s executives would not discuss it. Cuba has been without a bank since 2013, when a Buffalo bank canceled its account, Cuban officials have said, out of concerns about violating Treasury Department restrictions on financial transactions with the country.
Next week, Cuba is expected to officially come off the American government’s list of nations that sponsor international terrorism, after a 45-day review period ends following Mr. Obama’s notification to Congress in April that he was taking the action.
But the United States has yet to receive a commitment from Cuba that American diplomats would be able to travel freely on the island and speak to whomever they please, something Cuba generally regards as stirring up dissent. And so far, Cuba has not guaranteed that shipments to the American compound would not be tampered with, and that people visiting the United States Embassy would not face harassment from police officers guarding it.
At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, the top diplomat for Latin America, Assistant Secretary of State Roberta S. Jacobson, who is leading the talks for the United States, said, “We have to have an embassy where diplomats can travel and see the country and talk to people.”
At some embassies around the world, she said, diplomats are asked to notify the host country a day or several days in advance of travel but are generally not confined to one location. Cuban diplomats in the United States cannot travel beyond Washington or New York, and American diplomats in Cuba cannot leave Havana without permission.
Raúl Castro also recently complained to reporters about a program at the American interests section in Havana that trains independent journalists on basics of the profession, calling it “illegal” meddling in a country where the officially sanctioned news media is controlled by the state.
State Department officials defended the program, led by journalism professors from the United States, as routine and offered “around the world,” as one official put it. But the official left open the possibility that it or other programs would be modified or abandoned.
“I think the thing that you have to remember is the democracy programs, in their history since I think about 1996 when they began, have changed over time,” the official said. “And they will continue to change over time to reflect a reality, whether that reality is on the ground in Cuba or in the United States.”
Mr. Obama had hoped to have the embassies open before a historic meeting with Mr. Castro at a regional summit session in Panama last month.
Yet the Cubans have approached the new relationship more warily than the United States, even as American visitors flock to the island and American companies look into the possibility of trade deals and other business activity there.
Even scheduling the current round of talks took some time.
“We were ready to get together right after that meeting with President Castro” in Panama, the State Department official said, “and our counterparts weren’t necessarily as quick to be prepared as we were.”
