State Department confirms resumption of migration talks with Havana

Posted on Thursday, 06.20.13

State Department confirms resumption of migration talks with Havana
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

The U.S. State Department confirmed Wednesday that U.S. and Cuban
officials will meet July 17 in Washington to resume long-suspended
migration talks, but said the talks do not represent a change in U.S.
policy toward the island.

"Continuing to ensure secure migration between the U.S. and Cuba is
consistent with our interests in promoting greater freedoms and
increased respect for human rights in Cuba," department spokesman
William Ostick said.

"I can confirm that on July 17, representatives of the Department of
State are scheduled to meet with representatives of the government of
Cuba to discuss migration issues," Ostick added.

The resumption of the migration talks, first reported Tuesday by El
Nuevo Herald, is viewed as an effort by the Obama administration to
improve relations with Havana, hamstrung by Cuba's jailing of U.S.
government subcontractor Alan Gross since 2009.

The spokesman noted that under the terms of U.S.-Cuba accords in 1994
and 1995 — which followed the 1994 balsero crisis that saw 30,000 people
flee Cuba in homemade rafts — the two countries agreed to work toward
"safe, legal and orderly migration."

The agreements also called for periodic reviews of the implementation of
those accords.

President George W. Bush suspended the twice-annual reviews in 2003. The
Obama administration resumed them in 2009 but suspended them again after
Gross was arrested in Havana late that year.

Gross is serving a 15-year sentence for giving Cuban Jews sophisticated
communications equipment paid for by the U.S. government in what Havana
views as a thinly veiled effort to topple the communist-run government.

Obama administration officials have said repeatedly that there can be no
significant improvement in bilateral relations until Gross is freed.
Havana has offered to swap him for four convicted Cuban spies in U.S.
prisons, but Washington has rejected that deal.

Opponents of warmer U.S. relations with Havana have decried the
resumption of the migration talks as a unilateral Obama concession to
Cuba at a time when Gross is being held in a Havana prison.

But Ted Piccone, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution in Washington,
said the migration talks and a separate round of bilateral meetings this
week in Washington on direct mail service, suspended since the 1960s,
were positive developments.

"The resumption of these talks shows that the two sides are looking for
cooperation and dialogue while trying to figure out a solution for Alan
Gross," he said. Regardless of the results, "just the fact that they are
having them is positive."

Source: "State Department confirms resumption of migration talks with
Havana - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/20/3460271/state-department-confirms-resumption.html