A trio of US senators visiting Cuba’s capital on Saturday called for the reopening of full embassies in Havana and Washington, under the recent US-Cuban diplomatic thaw.
After more than five decades of Cold War bad blood, Cuban President Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama in December last year agreed to normalize relations.
The two leaders held groundbreaking talks on the sidelines of an April summit in Panama.
Photo: AFP
“We must open an embassy, a full embassy. We had full embassies years ago,” US Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont said, joined by Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland and Senator Dean Heller of Nevada.
“Some in the [US] Congress oppose opening it,” Leahy said. “I like to say that they are very much in the minority.”
Leahy, a frequent visitor to Cuba in recent years, said Obama has been chipping away at restrictions on US travel to island nation, and that he expected regularly scheduled commercial flights would not be far off.
At the moment, there are only regularly operating charters; and the comprehensive US sanctions on Cuba remain in place.
Legally, the sanctions can be removed only by the Republican-led US Congress.
“When the president is right I support him, and the president is right in this case,” said Heller, a Republican.
“One of the reasons it is important to have a full mission for the [US] in Cuba is it can represent American interest in Cuba,” Cardin added.
The US and Cuba, which have had only diplomatic “interest sections” for years, have met several times on the full embassy issue. It is believed they could reopen as early as this month.
The White House sees better relations with Cuba as correcting an out-of-date policy and as a likely signature foreign policy achievement of Obama’s presidency.
Just last month, the US dropped the nation from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, removing another hurdle to normalization.
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