The State Department is denying that it will agree to new demands from Cuba to be removed from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations as a precondition for restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The Cuban government on Wednesday upped its preconditions before the U.S. can open an embassy in Havana. Gustavo Machin, the vice director for U.S. relations at the Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters that it doesn’t make sense to restore diplomatic relations while the U.S. continues to include Havana on the terrorism blacklist.
Talks between the two countries will resume Friday in Washington, and a senior administration official told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. wants to move the talks along and open an embassy in Havana as soon as possible.
Despite the new Cuban conditions, the same official said the U.S. does not consider the two issues — removal from the state sponsor of terrorism list and restoring diplomatic relations — linked.
“We’re moving forward with the review of Cuba on that list as soon as we can, but we don’t think that should be linked to the restoration of diplomatic relations,” the official said. “I don’t think that’s a helpful comparison or linkage.”
President Obama, in announcing an effort to normalize relations with Cuba in December, asked the State Department to review Havana’s continued inclusion on the terrorism blacklist.
But that process is still ongoing and open-ended although the official told reporters Wednesday the review results are likely to come in a matter of weeks, not months. Cuba cannot be fully removed until Obama makes his decision, initiating a 45-day wait period in which Congress can review the decision. It doesn’t require Congressional approval to take effect.
“When the president makes the decision he will send his notification to Congress, and the Cubans should feel comfortable with that,” the officials said.
Many critics of Obama’s steps to normalize relations with Cuba are vehemently against taking Havana off the terrorism blacklist, which includes Iran, Syria and Sudan, among others. But they worry the step is a foregone conclusion as U.S. officials rush to advance the negotiations in advance of the Summit of the Americas set to be held in Panama April 10 and 11.
Cuba is attending the summit for the first time, and Obama is expected to sit-down with Cuban President Raul Castro on the conference’s sidelines.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., a Cuban-American and one of the strongest voices against steps to normalize relations, has been fighting to keep Havana on the terrorism blacklist.
“Cuba must remain a state sponsor of terrorism because it has not changed its terrorist ways,” she said in a speech on the House floor last month.
She pointed to an episode in 2013 in which Cuba was caught helping North Korea evade United Nations Security Council sanctions by shipping arms and munitions to Kim Jong-Un.
“At a time when Congress and the White House are trying to punish the regime for its cyber attacks against the U.S., we have to remember that other rogue regimes like the one in Cuba have helped North Korea,” she said.
Cuba, she said, also continues to thumb its nose at the U.S. by harboring U.S fugitives, including cop killers and bank robbers.
The Castro government was first put on the list in 1982, mainly for providing refuge for Colombian FARC rebels and ETA Basque militants.
Havana is currently hosting peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government, what one administration official said is a positive sign.
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and the ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said he doesn’t believe Havana’s ties to FARC rebels or its record of harboring U.S. fugitives compares to “terrorism as we know it today.”
Still, Engel, who visited Cuba last week with several of his Democratic colleagues, said he doesn’t believe the U.S. should give the Castro government a concession this large without getting anything in return.
“Cuba has got a long way to go in terms of human rights and other things before we just give something up to them,” he told the Washington Examiner.
“It’s not something I would favor – unilaterally taking them off the list” without winning human rights guarantees and serious commitments to allow freedom of speech without the fear of arrest, as well as political pluralism, he said.
“I’m up for opening the embassy, but they can’t dictate the terms and tray to blackmail us – that’s ridiculous,” he said. “I think there’s lots of possibilities but its give and take on both sides.”
