US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro held the first face-to-face talks between US and Cuban leaders since 1956 in Panama City on Saturday, vowing to pursue their historic effort to bury Cold War-era enmity.
Sitting together in a room with a blue carpet, Obama thanked Castro for his “spirit of openness and courtesy” during their interactions, while the Cuban leader stressed that the negotiations would require patience.
Obama also sought to calm tensions with another leftist nation and a Cuban ally, speaking briefly with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for the first time, telling him Washington did not seek to threaten Caracas.
Photo: AFP/ VENEZUELAN PRESIDENCY
The Obama-Castro meeting, which lasted more than an hour, was the climax of their surprise announcement on Dec. 17 last year that, after a year-and-a-half of secret negotiations, they would seek to normalize relations that were broken off in 1961.
“This is obviously a historic meeting,” said Obama, who spoke first after they sat down in polished, wooden chairs for their talks on the sidelines of the 35-nation Summit of the Americas in Panama City.
“We are now in a position to move on a path toward the future,” he said, adding that the immediate task is to reopen embassies.
Castro, 83, broke into a smile when Obama acknowledged that the two sides would continue to have differences on human rights and other issues.
After Obama spoke, the two men stood up and shook hands.
Saying he agreed with everything Obama said, Castro acknowledged that the two governments can still have differences, but “with respect of the ideas of the others.”
“We are willing to discuss everything, but we need to be patient, very patient,” Castro said. “We already expressed to some American friends on other occasions that we are willing to talk about everything.”
When Castro said he hoped the US and Cuban delegations would listen to their presidents’ instructions, Obama laughed.
The two leaders, who had spoken on the telephone in December last year and on Wednesday last week, shook hands again and reporters were ushered away ahead of a closed-door discussion.
Obama told reporters later that the conversation was “candid and fruitful,” and that he did not shy away from telling Castro that Washington would keep airing concerns about democracy and human rights.
They had both already made conciliatory speeches moments earlier during the summit, sitting at an oval table with about 30 other regional leaders.
Addressing the leaders, Castro declared: “President Obama is an honest man.”
Such words would have been unimaginable in the days that his brother, former Cuban president Fidel Castro, was at the helm from 1959 until an illness sidelined him in 2006.
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