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U.S., Cuba begin talks aimed at ending decades-long estrangement U.S., Cuba find ‘profound differences’ in first round of talks
(about 6 hours later)
HAVANA — The United States and Cuba began historic talks here Thursday, aimed at ending more than five decades of official estrangement. HAVANA — The Cuban and American delegations sat at parallel tables, eight wary diplomats on each side, facing each other across a distance of about six feet and a gulf filled with more than a half-century of grievances.
After an early morning arrival at Havana’s Conference Palace, the eight-person delegations sat for cameras at facing tables without comment, across a six-foot divide, before closing the doors on what officials said would be all-day discussions. In separate news conferences afterward, at the end of their first round of talks Thursday, both sides pronounced it “productive,” respectful and positive.
Divisions remain over a number of issues, from the ongoing U.S. embargo and extradition of fugitives, to compensation each side believes it is owed for the other’s policies of the last 53 years. What appeared to unite them was a determination to quickly take the first step toward reconciliation by restoring diplomatic relations. But both acknowledged that “profound differences” remain.
Three hours after the talks began, Gustavo Machin, a senior Cuban diplomat, emerged to report that that outcome was not in doubt, since President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro had already announced last month that ties would be reestablished. “What you have to recognize,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson said after the initial session, “is that we have . . . to overcome more than 50 years of a relationship that was not based on confidence or trust.”
They had already agreed, he said, that relations would be “based on . . . the Vienna Conventions on diplomatic and consular relations,” the international treaty that governs the reciprocal privileges and protections of official missions overseas. Josefina Vidal, Jacobson’s counterpart at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, stressed the importance of approaching each other on the basis of “equal sovereignty” and “avoiding any interference in [each other’s] internal affairs.”
Calling the talks “flexible and respectful,” Machin said the two sides had begun exchanging data and proposals on “how to make the decision a reality.” Like Jacobson, Vidal stressed that reopening embassies that were closed in 1961 was just the first step in a complicated process of normalizing relations.
U.S. and Cuban officials have said that finalizing the decision will likely take several more meetings. But Machin himself was a symbol of how far the two sides already have come. Serving in the Cuban Interests Section in Washington in 2003, he was one of 14 Cuban diplomats expelled on espionage charges. Even that will require further negotiation. For example, Vidal said, “it would be very difficult to explain that there has been a resumption of diplomatic relations . . . while our country unjustly continues to be included on the [U.S.] list of state sponsors of terrorism.”
Despite somewhat stony exteriors as the official sessions began, the delegation heads, Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson and Josefina Vidal, head of the Americas department of Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, were said to have made initial progress in breaking the ice at an informal working dinner Wednesday night. The sober descriptions of what still divides the two governments deflated some of the enthusiasm for rapid change that has been building on both sides. But the delegations said they would set an early date for another meeting and were committed to the public pledge made by President Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro last month to restore diplomatic relations and then begin to tackle other areas of discord.
In the streets of Havana this week, Cubans seemed to talk of little else. Delegation arrivals at the conference center were broadcast on live television, as were news conferences Wednesday by Cuban and U.S. officials who held separate talks on migration issues that are scheduled every six months. If body language and ease of public presentation was any guide, Vidal, clearly on her own turf, seemed far more forthcoming than Jacobson in addressing the dozens of U.S. journalists who have traveled to Cuba to cover the talks along with other international news media. She took more questions than Jacobson and translated her own Spanish into fluent English.
In those talks, Cuba complained that the U.S. policy of allowing Cubans to become permanent residents once they set foot on U.S. soil has continued to encourage unsafe, illegal departures by sea. The Cubans also described increasing illegal entry into the United States through third countries, often via human trafficking over the Mexico border or with false documents, and criticized what they said were U.S. attempts to persuade Cuban doctors and other professionals working in third countries as part of Cuba’s foreign aid programs to defect. But her remarks were also more specific on areas of discord, including what subjects they discussed.
Thursday’s normalization talks are to be divided in a morning session of discussion on reopening embassies in Washington and Havana, and an afternoon meeting to discuss other bilateral issues. Obama, who announced relations would be restored in a Dec. 17 speech, has said that U.S. human rights concerns would be directly raised in conversations with Cuba.
Cuba wants the United States to remove it from its list of “state sponsors of terrorists,” a senior Cuban official said Tuesday. While the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said removal was not a precondition for restoring ties, he said it was “inconceivable” that the two nations could have relations if Cuba remains “unfairly on that list.” “We did discuss it today, as part of my conversation,” Jacobson said. “I think I can say that their response was that they had differences with us on that subject.”
Cuba’s presence on the list, along with Sudan, Syria and Iran, has long been an anomaly attributable more to the overall estrangement between the two countries than Cuban actions. While the others are accused of ongoing sponsorship of terrorist acts abroad, Cuba’s sins, according to the annual State Department report on the list, include the presence here for decades of members of ETA, the Spanish Basque militant organization, whose return Spain long ago stopped seeking. Vidal said that the meeting “explicitly discussed the restoration of relations and opening of embassies” and that human rights “has not been discussed.” She said Cuba had stressed the importance of not interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
Cuba is also accused of harboring several dozen U.S. fugitives, including Joanne Chesimard, wanted in the 1971 slaying of a New Jersey state trooper. In addition, “to Cuba, the lifting of the blockade is essential to normalizing relations” beyond establishing embassies, Vidal said of the U.S. embargo imposed since 1960. But Cuba recognizes “the willingness of the U.S. president to have a serious and honest debate” about removing it with Congress, which must act to lift it, she said.
Obama has ordered the State Department to review Cuba’s listing, which dates to 1982, and recommend a course of action. Assuming he approves Cuba’s removal, he must then transmit his decision to Congress for a 45-day waiting period until it takes effect. The terrorism list, however, is a different story. Obama has the power to remove Cuba from the list if he determines that Havana has not engaged in terrorism in the recent past and is unlikely to do so in the future. He has asked the State Department to review Cuba’s status and provide a recommendation.
A senior State Department official said the United States would expect normalization “going forward even while there is a waiting period” for formal removal from the list. Its presence since 1982 on the list, which also includes Iran, Sudan and Syria, is more than a significant irritant to Cuba. Based on an uptick of Obama administration penalties imposed on foreign banks whose business with Cuba has passed through U.S. financial institutions — a practice banned for all those on the list — Buffalo-based M&T Bank dropped the Cuban Interests Section in Washington last year as a client.
The senior Cuban official also said that relations could not be fully normalized until the U.S. trade embargo, initially imposed in 1960, is completely lifted. In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, Obama called on Congress to do so, saying that “we are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date.” Since then, U.S. banks have decided to err on the side of caution in avoiding any dealings with Cuba, and none has been willing to open an account for the U.S.-based diplomats, who must conduct all of their transactions in cash.
But Cuban officials are well aware that any congressional action will take time and is far from assured. Last week, Obama used his executive authority to adjust regulations on the embargo, including an easing of travel and trade restrictions. If its diplomats were unable to conduct bank transactions, Vidal and other Cuban officials said, the United States would not be complying with the international conventions on diplomatic practices­ that both delegations on Thursday said they had agreed would govern their new embassies.
As part of the embassy negotiations, U.S. officials want Cuba to lift restrictions on the number of U.S. diplomats here and to ease the heavy security presence around the building that it says intimidates Cubans from visiting. Once he receives the State Department recommendation, Obama must transmit his decision to Congress. Assuming a positive outcome, there is a 45-day waiting period before implementation of any removals from the list.
Obama has said the United States will continue to push Havana on issues of human rights and democracy as it moves toward a new relationship. Jacobson plans to hold a breakfast for Cuban civil society representatives, human rights activists and political dissidents Friday before her departure. After the first round ended Thursday morning, talks continued in the afternoon on a broader range of issues on which the two governments said they want to increase existing cooperation. Those issues include counter-narcotics efforts, the global environment and international health matters such as Ebola. The administration has publicly praised Cuba for sending hundreds of doctors overseas, including to Ebola-afflicted areas.
The senior Cuban official said his government would also raise its “concerns” about human rights issues in the United States, citing the police controversies in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City. In the streets of Havana this week, Cubans seemed to talk of little else but the opening between the two governments. Delegation arrivals at the conference center were broadcast on live television, and news conferences Wednesday by Cuban and U.S. officials who conducted separate talks on migration issues held every six months were prominently broadcast on local news.
U.S. opponents of normalization, who have charged that Obama has gotten little in return for what they describe as a “gift” to Castro and Cuba’s communist government, called for additional American demands to be immediately put on the table. In those talks, Havana complained that the U.S. policy of allowing Cubans to become permanent residents once they set foot on U.S. soil continued to encourage unsafe, illegal departures by sea. The Cubans also described increasing illegal entry into the United States through third countries, often via human smuggling over the Mexico border or with false documents, and criticized what they said were U.S. attempts to persuade Cuban doctors and other professionals working in third countries as part of Cuba’s foreign aid programs to defect.
In a letter Wednesday to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said that Jacobson “must prioritize the interests of American citizens and businesses that have suffered at the hands of the Castro regime before providing additional economic and political concessions to a government that remains hostile to U.S. interests.”