NPR – by Krishnadev CalamurPresident Obama announced today the most significant change in U.S. policy toward Cuba in more than 50 years, paving the way for the normalization of relations and the opening of a U.S. Embassy in Havana.
Obama said “we will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries.”
He added: “These 50 years have shown, isolation has not worked. It’s time for a new approach.”
Obama said as these changes unfold, he will talk to Congress about lifting the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, shortly after Fidel Castro and his communist rebels ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista.
In a nationally televised address, Cuban President Raul Castro called on the United States to “remove any obstacles that hinder ties between our two countries.”
“This decision by president Obama deserves the respect and recognition of our people,” Castro said. However, he added, this “does not mean that the most important issue has been resolved. The embargo on our country … has to end.”
Despite “profound differences,” Castro said, Cuba is willing to talk to the United States about thorny subjects including human rights and democracy.
Today’s developments come hours after news emerged that Alan Gross, the American contractor who spent five years in a Cuban jail, had been freed on humanitarian grounds. Gross has since arrived in the U.S.
The U.S. will start talks with Cuba on normalizing relations and on opening an embassy in Havana, senior administration officials said. The move would mark the resumption of diplomatic relations that were severed in 1961, shortly after Fidel Castro came to power.
U.S. officials also said three Cuban spies, part of the so-called Cuban Five spy ring, will be released in exchange for an unnamed U.S. intelligence asset jailed in Cuba for 20 years. That individual, U.S. officials said, identified the Cuban Five, Cuban intelligence agents in the U.S. who were caught in the 1990s. The individual also identified former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana Belen Montes and former State Department official Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, as Cuban agents.
U.S. officials said the two countries will also normalize banking and trade relations. They said the U.S. expects to have differences with Cuba on issues such as democracy and human rights, but the move toward normalization is a “better way of advancing our interests and our values.”
Obama, the officials said, approved high-level talks with Cuba over the spring, and meetings were held in Canada. The Vatican also played an important role, the officials said, with Pope Francis appealing for Gross’ release in letters to both leaders.
The officials said the U.S. will also move to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Cuba has been on the list since 1982. Obama has asked Secretary of State John Kerry to give him within six months a review of Cuba’s support for terrorism.
Officials said that, among other steps, the U.S. will also ease travel and remittance policies; expand commercial sales and exports; and ease imports, including of tobacco products and alcohol. The U.S. will expand Cubans’ access to the Internet and telecommunications.
The U.S. and Cuba will both participate in the Summit of the Americas in Panama next year, but the U.S. said “Cuban civil society must be allowed to participate.”
Separately, Cuba also agreed to release 53 detainees whom the U.S. regards as political prisoners.
As we previously reported, Gross, a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, had been working on a program to improve Internet access for Jewish Cubans. During several trips to Cuba he had covertly distributed laptops. A Cuban court found him guilty of crimes against the state in 2011, and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/17/371398638/cuba-frees-american-contractor-alan-gross