US, Cuba seek to reopen embassies in historic talks

Yahoo – AFP, Laurent Thomet, 22 Jan 2015

US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. 

Jacobson talks with US Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western 

Hemisphere Affairs Edward Alex Lee during talks in Havana, January 22, 2015

(AFP Photo/Adalberto Roque)

Havana (AFP) - Cuban officials and the highest-level US delegation to visit Havana in 35 years held landmark talks Thursday on reopening embassies, but both sides warned that normalizing ties would take time.

The Cold War-era rivals sat down for negotiations aimed at lifting restrictions on diplomats in Havana and Washington, and pave the way to return ambassadors, decades after relations broke in 1961.

Cuba's delegation member Gustavo 

Machin talks to the press during the

 second day of closed-door talks 

between Cuba and the United State,

 at the Convention Palace in Havana,

 January 22, 2015 (AFP Photo/Yamil

Lage)

US assistant secretary of state Roberta Jacobson, the most senior US official on the communist-ruled island since 1980, led the American delegation for the second day of meetings, one day after talks on migration policy.

Cuba was represented by the director of the foreign ministry's US affairs department, Josefina Vidal, at the capital's Convention Center.

US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro surprised the world in December when they simultaneously announced plans to normalize relations following months of secret negotiations.

The raising of the US and Cuban flags in each other's capitals would send powerful signals of the new era the two nations want to enter, though no timeline has been given for reopening the embassies.

But US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Wednesday that the two sides still have much to negotiate before they can normalize ties.

"When it is timely, when it is appropriate, I'll look forward to traveling to Cuba in order to formally open an embassy and begin to move forward," Kerry said in Washington.

Gustavo Machin, a member of the Cuban delegation, said both sides agreed that reestablishing ties must be based on the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, but he downplayed chances of major breakthroughs in this first round of talks.

"I don't believe ... that all the issues can be agreed on in just one meeting," Machin told reporters on the sidelines of the negotiations.

But he said the meeting was taking place in a "atmosphere of respect, a relaxed atmosphere."

"And, well, look at my face, I think it reflects the spirit in which we are talking at the moment," the calm-looking, mustachioed official said as the closed-door talks continued.

US mission: Cold War symbol

Cubans queue outside the US Interests

 Section in Havana to apply for visas,

 on December 22, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Yamil Lage)

The two sides were negotiating how to turn their "interests sections" into fully functioning embassies with ambassadors in Washington and Havana.

The US mission to Cuba, a concrete and glass building along the capital's picturesque seawall, has been a symbol of the countries' mutual animosity since it opened in 1977.

Across the main entrance, the Cuban government built a vast esplanade to hold anti-US rallies.

In 2006, then president Fidel Castro ordered 138 flagpoles erected to block a giant display screen the mission was using to convey political messages.

Now, Washington wants Havana to reaccredit its diplomats; end travel restrictions for them within the island; ease shipments to the US mission; and lift a cap on US personnel.

"I don't know if these things are going to be resolved in one meeting," a US official told AFP.

The Cuban delegation has voiced "deep concerns" over the situation of the interests section in Washington, saying the US embargo has left its consulate without banking services for almost a year.

Between February and May last year, the Cuban consulate was unable to issue passports because it could not find a bank to handle transactions.

Cuban diplomats also face travel restrictions in Washington.

'Same bed, different dreams'

Arturo Lopez-Levy, an international affairs professor at New York University, said the talks are important to build trust as they seek new relations in the coming years.

A man carries bags with recyclable 

materials in Havana, on January 20, 

2015 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)

"Although Havana and Washington differ in the objective that they seek in the long term, today they are in the same bed. It doesn't matter that they have different dreams," he said.

Lingering differences were on display on Wednesday, as Cuban and US officials remained at odds over US policies that give Cubans who reach US soil quick access to permanent residency.

But the two sides welcomed the meeting as productive.

On Tuesday, Obama urged Congress to end the decades-long embargo against Cuba, which the Castro regime has blamed for the country's economic woes.

The dissident community on the island of 11 million has had a mixed reaction, praising Obama while voicing concern that too much was conceded to the regime.

In Washington, some Cuban-American lawmakers have criticized Obama, saying the administration had given up too much without securing human rights commitments.