The United States and Cuba have agreed to open embassies in each other’s countries, an administration official confirmed Tuesday.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are expected to announce the move Wednesday morning, a development that will begin the formal process of re-establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Obama in December first announced his intention to re-open diplomatic ties with the communist island nation, ending five decades of U.S. attempts to isolate Havana and the Castro regime.
Reacting to the news, critics immediately accused Obama of appeasing the Castro government in a move that would do nothing to help the Cuban people and bring about a more democratic government.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., a Cuban-American and a longtime critics of the Castros, argued that Obama was “legacy shopping” and that’s the motivation behind his engagement with Cuba and the move to open embassies in Havana and Washington.
“There was little doubt that the Obama administration would pursue its goal of opening an embassy in Cuba no matter the sad reality on the ground,” she said in a statement. “Since Obama’s December 17th announcement, the State Department has failed to forcibly condemn the increase of repression on the island now that the Castro regime feels emboldened to continue its attacks against the Cuban people.”
The Castro regime has continued to routinely harass, beat and imprison the democracy activists in Cuba, she said, as “the Obama administration has continued to turn its back on the Cuban people in order to pursue its goal of providing as many concessions as possible to the Cuban regime.”
