by Mark Silva and updated
As President Barack Obama landed at Port-of-Spain this afternoon for a summit including all the hemisphere's leaders but Cuba's, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton already had welcomed Cuban President Raul Castro's call for new talks with the United States.
"We welcome his comments, the overture they represent,'' Clinton said of Castro, "and we are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond."
Castro, allowing that Cuba may have been wrong about some of the stances that it has taken, says Cuba is ready to put "everything on the table'' - this, after Obama this week relaxed restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling to Cuba and sending money to relatives there, suggesting that there could be a relaxing of relations with the neighboring island nation if Cuba shows some progress on recognition of human rights.
The head of the Organization of American States said today that he will ask its members to readmit Cuba 47 years after it ousted the Communist nation. Castro, for his part, says "a serpent will be born from an eagle's egg'' before that happens.
With the leaders of 34 nations converging on Trinidad for the Summit of the Americas today -- an OAS-sponsored gathering that includes every nation in the region but communist Cuba -- speculation about a possible thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations are riding higher than they have since the largely frozen since the Cold War.
OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza announced his intention to back Cuba's readmission "We're going step by step," Insulza said, explaining that he will ask the OAS general assembly in May to annul the 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Mexico to Trinidad today, said: "I think the strongest reaction that we've all had is the admission by Castro that they might well have been wrong.
"The American people have all heard the president talk about this notion of a greater engagement of the Cuban people at a time and place of our choosing if that engagement could further our national interest,'' Gibbs said.
Washington provides more than 70 percent of the OAS budget, which affords it certain privileges. For 47 years, the Washington-based organization has officially considered Cuba's Communist system to be incompatible with its principles.
Yet most nations in the hemisphere have long since restored diplomatic ties, and there is a growing clamor for an end to efforts to isolate Cuba, not just from Raul and Fidel Castro's close friends, but also from conservative U.S. allies like Mexico.
Still Raul Castro spoke Thursday at a meeting of leftist leaders in Venezuela who vowed to represent Cuba's interests in Trinidad. The OAS, he said, "should disappear.''
"The North Sea will unite with the South Seas, a serpent will be born from an eagle's egg before Cuba joins the OAS," Castro said.
Raul Castro has previously said that he would be willing to discuss all issues with Obama. "We could be wrong, we admit it. We're human beings," Castro said. "We're willing to sit down to talk as it should be done, whenever."
Gibbs said today: "I think we were most struck by a few statements later saying they're human beings; they could have been wrong. That certainly stood out and struck us. ''
Castro's conditions for talks are that Washington must treat them as a conversation between equals and respect "the Cuban people's right to self-determination."
The Communist Party newspaper Granma today did not carry Castro's comments about the U.S., focusing instead on his talks on regional matters with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leaders. Granma's coverage of Obama's visit to Mexico ignored his statements about Cuba, and dealt instead with Mexican President Felipe Calderon's call on Obama to drop the U.S. trade embargo.
Comments
Loved the Headline.
Those three names should be spoken in the same breath when describing the current administration.
Posted by: Greg | April 17, 2009 4:09 PM
No mention of the hundreds of political prisoners in Cuba. Guess they don't really matter.
So the Obama administration negotiates with murderous tyrants? Let's see how well that works out...
Posted by: brad | April 17, 2009 5:08 PM
It will be a freakin' tea party when these 3 loonies gather. Allah help us all.
Posted by: BDD | April 17, 2009 5:45 PM
It takes a socialis to know a socialist. I feel sad for the people of Cuba but I also feel bad for the USA. Your elected president is so worng in many ways. Never trust your enemy. You will be surprised. I am a Viet Nam vet so I know what I say..................
Posted by: DON | April 17, 2009 6:00 PM
Fidel and Raul are said to have excellent spy network in US.
So maybe they could have their spies talk with our spies.
Who knows what new definition of "terrorism" and "torture" might come out of such talks?
Prof. Wu could be the note taker.
Posted by: ornery | April 17, 2009 6:02 PM
No mention of the hundreds of political prisoners in Cuba. Guess they don't really matter.
So the Obama administration negotiates with murderous tyrants? Let's see how well that works out...
Posted by: brad
Yeah, unlike all the tyrants the U.S. government SUPPORTED through the years??
Posted by: Joe | April 17, 2009 6:07 PM
Uhh, there are hundreds of thousands more political prisoners (if not millions if you count the non-Han Chinese ethnic groups) in China and yet, GW Bush, Reagan and Nixon had no problem dealing w/ those "murderous tyrants."
The fact we have a trade embargo w/ Cuba while we give China unlimited access to our market is due to nothing other than the politics - the votes of anti-Castro Cuban Americans.
Now, don't get me wrong, I can't stand Castro and his authoritarian regime, but Castro is on his last days and his brother, who is in power, seems amenable to reforms, including human rights - something that the Chinese govt. has yet to profer.
Posted by: cscs7 | April 17, 2009 6:26 PM
As a legal visitor to Cuba, under specific license, I am sad to think that Obama will sit to talk with Cuba as if they are "equals" with the US. No matter the political prisoners in Cuba, lack of people being able to communicate, and lack of the Cuban people being able to come and go internationally -- they are equals to the US? Well, maybe in the Brave New World planned by Obama for the US. We will become more like Cuba. Obama's picture is everywhere, much like Fidel Castro's -- equals.
Posted by: Jake Braekes | April 17, 2009 6:32 PM
brad, they won't proceed with any negotiations if there aren't Cuban concessions on political concessions. If they never talk, they won't get anywhere. The cold war is over.
Posted by: rupert | April 17, 2009 7:10 PM
both sides of this really do not understand their own ignorance, the ones cheering such a move and those decrying it..."negotiates with murderous tyrants?" are you serious? do you even know your own history? do your eyes and mind see even past your own arrogant nose? Good Lord people, grow up.
Posted by: staggerlee | April 17, 2009 7:17 PM
What tangible benefit does the US get from a nation whose chief products are refugees, political prisoners, sugar, sugar, cigars, cigars, (did I mention sugar?) and prostitutes? All they want is our money and that's in very short supply. Do we really need to involve ourselves while on the edge of an economic precipice with another failed, corrupt, dependent state like mexico? Or is this just more leftist wishful thinking?
Posted by: Waldo Brown | April 17, 2009 7:23 PM
"...the Cuban people's right to self-determination."
Which is what we all agree on, right?
Posted by: Tom J | April 17, 2009 8:31 PM
Right, youngsters. We don't negotiate with murderous tyrants. We bomb the hell out of them and occupy their countries for 8 or 10 years and break the American bank.
Posted by: George Jeb | April 17, 2009 10:42 PM
american embargo has left the govt, with no other option but to tighten the purse strings and manage 11++ million people , feed, clothe, and look after. given the circumstances , the govt, has done a decent job.people have not starved they have managed with handouts from sympathetic nations. without hard cash the embargo has impoverished a country and its populace, if the current administration can normalise the situation , i think cuba would be the new medical tourism destination and might help the overstressed US populace with the best medical care in the world at the lowest cost possible
Posted by: ajit N | April 18, 2009 8:26 AM
Posted by: brad | April 17, 2009 5:08 PM
No mention of the hundreds, if not thousands, of political prisoners in Saudi Arabia. Guess they don't really matter, right? Just as long as Saudi Arabia keeps selling us oil, right?.
Posted by: BC | April 18, 2009 2:49 PM
Read BETRAYAL: Clinton, Castro & The Cuban Five there's more to this story than we are hearing. Obama is being played by his own staff into persuing the Clinton Cuban policy of the late 1990's...
Posted by: Trig Combs | April 23, 2009 11:14 AM