At a conference this evening in Panama, President Obama announced after meeting with Cuban leader Raul Castro that “the Cold War is over.”
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“Part of my message here is, the Cold War is over,” said Obama. “There’s still a whole lot of challenges that we face and a lot of issues around the world, and we’re still going to have serious issues with Cuba on not just the Cuban government’s approach to its own people, but also regional issues and concerns.
“There are going to be areas where we cooperate as well. You know, Cuban doctors deployed during the ebola crisis made a difference, Cuban activity in Haiti in the wake of the earthquake made a difference. So there may be areas of collaboration as well.
Obama added, Cuba doesn’t “implicate our national security in a direct way. We have to be very clear, Cuba is not a threat to the United States. That doesn’t mean we don’t have differences with it. but on the list of threats that I am concerned about, I think it is fair to say between ISIL and Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and activities in Yemen and Libya and Boko Haram, Russian aggression in Ukraine, and the impact on our allies there. I could go down a pretty long list–climate change–so I think our approach has to be one of trying to work with the region and other countries, and be very clear about what we believe and stand for and what we think works and what doesn’t.”
