The US, in another move aimed at thawing relations with Cuba, has offered to resume migration talks with the communist-ruled nation almost six years after they were suspended.
“We intend to use the renewal of talks to reaffirm both sides' commitment to face legal and orderly migration,” a US State Department official said on Friday.
The official, who asked not to be named, said Washington hoped the talks would “improve operational relations with Cuba on migration issues.”
The US and Cuba had carried out discussions on the issue every two years until they were suspended in 2003 by former president George W. Bush.
Washington is trying to facilitate reunification of Cubans who want to leave the country with family in the US, mainly in South Florida.
Since coming to office in January, US President Barack Obama has moved to repair ties with Cuban President Raul Castro, who officially took over the reins from older brother Fidel Castro last year.
Last month Obama lifted travel and money transfer restrictions on Americans with relatives in Cuba.
The new US administration has also acknowledged that Washington's Cuba policy has been a failure, but Obama has said he would not, for now, end the 47-year-old economic embargo on Cuba, instead urging Havana to show progress on human rights.
Raul Castro, for his part, said last month that Cuba will not make symbolic “gestures” to please the US, putting the onus of improving bilateral relations squarely on Washington.
A clutch of Cuban-American lawmakers from both parties immediately criticized the latest US expression of readiness to resume migration talks.
“This constitutes another unilateral concession by the Obama administration to the dictatorship,” Florida lawmakers Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart said in a statement.
Republican Senator Mel Martinez, also of Florida, was critical as well: “The US suspended talks due to the Castro regime's refusal to comply with critical elements of the Migration Accords.”
“The administration should insist on the regime's full compliance with the Migration Accords before re-opening formal talks,” Martinez said.
The 1995 Cuba-US Migration Accord between Havana and Washington says Cuban migrants to the US who are intercepted at sea should be sent back to Cuba or to a third country, while those who make it to US soil should be allowed to stay in the US.
The Florida lawmakers said Havana continues to violate the accord by “denying hundreds of exit permits” each year to Cuban nationals who have received visas to enter the US.
Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, said the Obama administration “gesture will probably be well-received by the Castro brothers since it provides them with a perception of legitimacy and gives them the attention they seek.”
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