U.S. President Barack Obama Meets With Cuban President Raul Castro

U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro sat down on Saturday afternoon for talks in a meeting that made history as the first between the leaders of the two old Cold War adversaries for more than half a century.

On Friday evening, the two leaders shook hands. They met at The Summit of the Americas in Panama.

It was their first formal meeting in more than half a century, states the New York Times.  The meeting cleared the way for a normalization of relations that had seemed unthinkable to both Cubans and Americans for generations.

In a small conference room in a Panama City convention center on Saturday, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro sat side by side.  Obama said he wanted to “turn the page” on old divisions, although he acknowledged that significant differences between the governments would remain.

“This is obviously a historic meeting,” Obama said shortly after the two sat down. “It was my belief it was time to try something new, that it was important for us to engage more directly with the Cuban government,” quoted the New York Times.

“Over time it is possible for us to turn the page and develop a new relationship between our two countries,” Mr Obama told Mr Castro as they sat next to each other. “We are now in a position to move on a path toward the future,” quoted The Telegraph.

(Updated post)

Obama Will Meet Raul Castro Of Cuba In Panama

MSNBC

President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro spoke by phone Wednesday before leaving Washington for the President’s trip to Jamaica and Panama, according to CNN.

The two leaders will meet in Panama at the Summit of the Americas.

Obama is set to meet face-to-face with Raul Castro on Friday. It is the first time the leaders have interacted since their nations agreed to renew diplomatic relations after half-a-century of hostility, states CNN.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez have already met, according to Al Jazeera.  They met on the eve of the summit, on Thursday.

“It was the first time the chief diplomats from the two nations met since 1958, one year before Fidel Castro’s revolutionary guerrillas came to power,” stated Al Jazeera.

U.S. Won’t Return Guantanamo To Improve Cuban Ties

The Obama administration on Wednesday ruled out handing over the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, rejecting a central demand of Cuban President Raul Castro for restoring normal relations between the two countries.

Roberta Jacobson, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, also said the U.S. would continue transmitting radio and television broadcasts into Cuba that are opposed by Castro’s government.  Washington believes that the broadcasts and Guantanamo are not likely to stand in the way of U.S. and Cuban embassies being re-established after a half-century interruption.

However, Raul Castro laid out last week his long-term objectives for the rapprochement, according to the AP.

They do include the U.S. returning the Guantanamo base and prison, lifting the embargo and compensating his country for damages. The U.S. established the naval base in 1903; Cuba’s communist government has sought its return since coming to power in 1959.

The U.S. is hoping to clinch an agreement with Cuba on embassies in the coming months.

An Associated Press-GfK poll found broad support in the United States for warmer ties with Cuba.

Forty-five percent of those surveyed supported full diplomatic relations between the Cold War foes, with only 15 percent opposing. Sixty percent backed the end of the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba, with 35 percent for its continuation.

But the views expressed at Wednesday’s government hearing were different than those in the poll.  Senior Republicans and Democrats took turns excoriating President Barack Obama for negotiating in secret a December spy swap that also included promises from him and Castro to turn a new page in the U.S.-Cuban relationship.

Roberta Jacobson