The White House declined to say Monday whether President Obama would meet with Cuban leader Raul Castro at the Summit of the Americas in Panama later this week.
“I don’t have any news about the president’s schedule in Panama,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday.
He also declined to say whether the State Department would remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism before or during the summit. Lifting the terrorism designation is a major priority for the communist dictatorship and one Cuba has demanded take place before the Castro brothers allow a U.S. embassy to open in Havana.
“There has been diplomatic conversations and it’s still our view that we hope to take some steps to normalize our relationship with Cuba and that we hope to open our embassies in Cuba,” Earnest said, adding that the State Department is still processing its decision whether to keep Cuba on the list of terrorism sponsors.
“When you have a country that has essentially been ostracized by the U.S. for five decades, it’s going to take some time to re-establish some trust and make these agreements,” Earnest continued.
“When you consider the history between our two countries, three months doesn’t seem a long time,” Earnest said. Obama offered to normalize relations with the impoverished island nation in December by executive order.
The 83-year-old Raul Castro has ruled Cuba as President of the Council of State since the full debilitation of his brother Fidel Castro, who led Cuba’s revolution in 1959 and established its command economy model, which always failed to provide basic needs and deteriorated further after the Castros lost their essential patron with the disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991. Thousands of Cubans each year attempt to flee to the United States, with many braving the treacherous waters of the Caribbean in handmade rafts.
Obama and Castro briefly shook hands at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela in 2013 and then spoke via telephone in December before announcing a plan to normalize relations between the two countries.
What form of encounter, if any, the two leaders have at the summit in Panama Friday and Saturday is expected to set an important tone for future relations. This will be the first time leaders from both countries will be on hand since the first Summit of the Americas in Miami in 1994.
