President Obama said Thursday that the State Department has completed its review of whether to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and that recommendation has been forwarded to the White House.
The president, however, did not indicate which way the State Department came out on the issue.
‘That review has been completed,” Obama said of the State Department process, noting that it still had to go through an interagency process before the decision is presented to him.
As for a formal recommendation to him, “that hasn’t happened yet,” he told reporters traveling with him to the summit during a stop in Jamaica.
“I won’t make a formal announcement today about what those recommendations are until I have them,” he said.
“Our focus has been on the facts,” he added.
As for the broader question of re-establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, he said the pace of the talks are what he expected.
“I never foresaw that immediately, overnight, Cuba would transform,” he said, noting that he anticipates being able to move forward with opening embassies and predicting “concrete steps this year and next toward normalization.”
Obama is expected to announce that has accepted a recommendation from the State Department to remove Cuba from the list, with an announcement coming sometime before or during the Summit of the Americas, which takes place in Panama on Friday and Saturday.
The announcement could come as Obama is set to meet Cuban President Raul Castro on the sidelines of the summit.
Castro has said his government’s removal form the list is a major priority and he would consider any delay or a decision not to keep Cuba on the list as a stumbling block to opening embassies in each other’s countries, a major goal for the Obama administration.
The terror designation has led U.S. banks to deny services to Cuban diplomats living and working in New York and Washington, a direct impediment to establishing a Cuban embassy in the country.
Congress has 45 days to review and reject a decision to lift the terror designation.
Critics of Obama’s Cuba policy ardently oppose removing the Castro regime from the terror list, citing the government’s recent violations of U.N. Security Council sanctions against smuggling jets, missile batteries and other weaponry to North Korea. Just earlier this month, they note, the Colombian government also detained a Chinese ship trafficking explosives and arms to Cuba.
Obama arrived in Jamaica on Wednesday night and will travel to Panama City Thursday evening.
The president and Raul Castro spoke via phone last December before Obama announced his decision to reverse 50 years of U.S. isolation of the island nation. They also shook hands in passing when they both attended Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in 2013.
