WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will not curtail its support for democracy and human rights activists in Cuba as part of any agreement to restore embassies between the two countries after a half-century interruption, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America said Tuesday.
But Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson did say that more U.S.-Cuba talks on re-establishing full diplomatic relations were planned for later this month.
Testifying at the first Senate hearing chaired by Sen. Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and likely 2016 presidential candidate, Jacobson faced a mix of policy and political questions related to President Barack Obama’s decision to tighten ties with a long-time American enemy. Beyond the packed gallery, the sizable presence of television media from Rubio’s home state of Florida was unusual for a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee session.
Rubio asked Jacobson and State Department human rights chief Tom Malinowski if they would be willing to sacrifice human rights in an embassy agreement. He read from an interview that Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top negotiator, gave The Associated Press after two days of historic talks in Havana last month in which she tied the establishment of embassies to reduced U.S. support for Cuban dissidents.
“We would not curtail the activities we’re doing now,” Jacobson answered. When Rubio pressed her for a firm commitment, she said she couldn’t imagine a U.S. embassy operating in Havana under such conditions and suggested that Vidal’s comments may have been more posturing than an actual negotiating position.
Jacobson’s trip to Havana last month made her the highest-level U.S. official to visit Cuban capital in more than three decades. The talks encompassed the details of reconstituting embassies in each other’s capitals, managing migration flows and the much larger process of normalizing ties between governments with unresolved issues ranging from fugitives to financial claims.
Jacobson said she raised several barriers to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations during her Havana discussions, including U.S. resistance to any restrictions on American diplomats, shipments to the U.S. Interests Section and Cuban access to that building.
Concrete progress was limited in the first round of talks, which focused largely on setting an agenda. Jacobson said in prepared testimony Tuesday that the two sides intend to talk again in February. Those talks are likely to be in Washington.
Among senators, positions on Obama’s sudden rapprochement with Cuba crisscrossed party affiliation and political interest. Countering Rubio among Republicans was Sen. Jeff Flake, who wants to end all U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba. Rand Paul , another Republican senator who supports the thaw and could run for president in 2016, did not show up for the hearing.
And among Democrats, Sen. Barbara Boxer defended the Obama administration after another Cuban-American, Sen. Bob Menendez, complained that the U.S. won no concessions from President Raul Castro’s government and demanded that Cuba extradite a woman convicted of killing a policeman from his state.
Obama and Castro vowed to improve ties after announcing in December a spy swap and the release of Alan Gross, a U.S. aid contractor who had been held in Cuba for five years. In the weeks that followed, Obama’s administration relaxed several restrictions on Cuba under the American economic embargo and Castro’s government released 53 political prisoners.
However, the Cuban government also tallied 140 new, short-term detentions since December, the State Department’s Malinowski said.