Cuba, US hold new round of talks on diplomatic ties

Cuba, US hold new round of talks on diplomatic ties
BY MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN AND PETER ORSI ASSOCIATED PRESS
03/16/2015 8:33 PM 03/16/2015 8:33 PM

HAVANA
U.S. and Cuban diplomats talked behind closed doors Monday in a
last-minute round of negotiations aimed at restoring full diplomatic
relations before a key regional summit in less than a month.

A small team of negotiators led by Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. Jacobson met with Josefina Vidal,
Cuba's top diplomat for U.S. affairs, in open-ended talks announced less
than 48 hours before Jacobson flew to Havana on Sunday.

The U.S. and Cuba held their first round of talks in Havana in January,
a little more than a month after presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro
announced that they would reopen embassies in each other's countries and
try to move toward a broader normalization.

The second round was held in Washington last month and both sides said
they were optimistic that they would be able to resolve a series of
sticking points before Obama and Castro attend the Summit of the
Americas in Panama on April 10-11.

The first rounds each lasted a day and saw negotiators routinely issuing
updates on progress. This week's was held without a finishing date or
any scheduled statements to the press.

"I think their focus is on rolling up their sleeves and having tough
discussions and getting the work done," State Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki told reporters in Washington.

The State Department said Friday that topics being discussed in Havana
would include lifting caps on Cuban and U.S. diplomatic staff and limits
on their movements outside Havana and Washington.

"They're down to sort of nuts and bolts," said John Caulfield, who was
U.S. Interests Section chief from 2011 until last summer. He said other
topics likely included housing for diplomats and U.S. shipments to the
new embassy.

Mark Erwin, a former U.S. ambassador to Mauritius who met with Vidal and
U.S. officials in Cuba this month, said both sides were optimistic that
establishment of actual embassies would happen before the April 10
summit in Panama City.

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Peter Orsi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Peter-Orsi

Source: Cuba, US hold new round of talks on diplomatic ties | Miami
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