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Cuban assembly speaker: meeting won't affect dialogue with U.S.
Havana, Feb 21, 2010 (EFE via COMTEX) --
Cuban National Assembly speaker Ricardo
Alarcon said he did not believe that the meeting of U.S. diplomats
with Cuban dissidents earlier this weekend, after engaging in talks
with the government about immigration, ruptures the dialogue between
Washington and Havana.
"I don't think that it has to interrupt it, except if in his
inclination for change Mr. (Barack) Obama is going to do the same
thing that Mr. (George W.) Bush did previously," Alarcon said in
response to questions from reporters about the future of the
bilateral dialogue.
"We're in favor of continuing the conversations ... Not only on
these immigration questions, but also on any other issue, but on the
basis of respect," Alarcon said.
The incident was a "very revealing demonstration" of how with the
Obama administration "there has been little change in the U.S.
attitude of continuing trying to promote subversion and intervening
in the internal affairs of Cuba," Alarcon said.
The Cuban government on Saturday blasted U.S. diplomats for
meeting Friday night in Havana with members of the opposition.
The organizing of the meeting by the Americans amounted to
"offensive conduct against the Cuban authorities and people," The
Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that "it points
up their lack of real will to improve links."
The U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Western
Hemisphere affairs, Craig Kelly, had been warned since he arrived in
Cuba about "rejecting (the chance) of taking advantage of his brief
stay to organize a provocative event," the Foreign Ministry said.
Cuba, nevertheless, is willing to "maintain a respectful dialogue
on any issue with the U.S. government, provided that it is between
equals, without impairing independence, sovereignty and
self-determination," the Foreign Ministry said.
Kelly, the most senior U.S. official to visit Cuba since Obama
entered the White House, headed the U.S. delegation in migration
talks with Cuban officials Friday in Havana.
The U.S. diplomat also raised the matter of American contractor
Alan Gross, who has been jailed in Havana since Dec. 4 on espionage
charges, on the sidelines of the meeting, the U.S. State Department
said in a press release.
The 60-year-old Gross is a subcontractor working for a
Maryland-based global-development company on a U.S. Agency for
International Development project.
Gross was distributing laptop computers, cellular phones and
other communications equipment on the communist-ruled island.
Though the United States and Cuba have not had diplomatic
relations since 1961, the two countries established interests
sections in each other's capitals in 1977.
The bilateral migration talks held Friday focused on
implementation of the U.S.-Cuba Migration accords, marking the
second such meeting since a 2009 decision to renew the negotiations.
EFE
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