Sunday, May 31, 2009

Cuba and US to open new talks?

Cuba Offers Additional Direct Talks with U.S.
By MARK LANDLER and BRIAN KNOWLTON
Published: May 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — Cuba has notified the United States that it is willing to resume talks on migration issues and to negotiate direct postal services between the countries, a senior American official said on Sunday.

Cuba also agreed to cooperate with the United States on counterterrorism, drug interdiction and disaster relief efforts.

The decisions, conveyed Saturday in diplomatic notes, represent another step in the unlocking of relations between Cuba and the United States under the Obama administration, after a half-century of chilly ties and an economic embargo that many in the hemisphere, and in Europe, say has outlived its usefulness.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday left for El Salvador and then a meeting on Tuesday in Honduras of the Organization of American States. Members of the group want the United States to mark an even clearer break with the past by moving to readmit Cuba. The organization expelled Cuba in 1962, citing what it said was Cuba’s disruptive alliance with “the Communist bloc.”

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