The top U.S. official conducting talks with the Cuban government in Havana this week offered few details about negotiations over human rights but said both sides are moving forward with re-establishing diplomatic relations.
Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson said the first round of talks with Cuban officials have been “positive and productive,” with both sides moving forward with plans to open embassies in their respective countries and discussions on how the U.S. embassy in Havana would operate.
Jacobson also highlighted the new regulations easing sanctions against Cuba announced by the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments last week as demonstrating “the breadth and depth to which the United States has already implemented the president’s commitment to a new director for the U.S. policy on Cuba.”
“Our efforts to normalize relations will be a continuing process that goes beyond establishing diplomatic relations or opening an embassy,” she said. “Today, we have made further steps in this new direction.”
But Jacobson did not volunteer any information about concessions the administration is seeking from the Cuban government when it comes to releasing more prisoners, state sponsors of terror and other U.S. fugitives the Castro regime continues to harbor or other human-rights guarantees.
Establishing diplomatic relations, she said, “does not have a checklist or a template that one has to follow every time.”
The opening of embassies and re-engaging with the Cuban government by sending U.S. diplomats to Havana, she said, is done by “mutual consent of the two countries and is a relatively straightforward process, not overly cumbersome.”
Repeatedly pressed by reporters to say how the administration is working to keep President Obama’s pledge to make human rights and freedom of expression part of the conversation, Jacobson said the issue remains “central” to the talks but offered no specific examples of the concessions the U.S. is seeking.
“We do have differences in that subject — profound differences with the Cuban government, and it was part of the conversation today,” she said. “I think I can say that their response was that they had differences with us on that subject.”
