President Obama clasps hands with Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller after signing the guest book at Jamaica House on April 9 in Kingston. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
KINGSTON, Jamaica — The State Department has finished its review of Cuba’s presence on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and forwarded its recommendation to the White House, President Obama said Thursday.
Obama said he is waiting for his top aides to review the document and place it before him for a final decision. “That hasn’t happened yet,” he said after a meeting here with Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, so “I won’t make a formal announcement today.”
An announcement that Cuba is to be removed from the list, clearing the principal obstacle to re-establishment of diplomatic relations and opening of embassies in Washington and Havana, may come as early as Friday, when both Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro will attend the two-day, 35-nation Summit of the Americas in Panama.
Once Obama approves the recommendation, it goes to Congress, which has 45 days to consider it but has no power to alter it except through new legislation. That is not anticipated.
Administration aides have strongly hinted that Obama and Castro will meet at the summit but have not specified the nature of the encounter.
Obama said the normalization process with Cuba that he and Castro simultaneously announced on Dec. 17 was proceeding “overall . . . as I expected.” He said he “never thought” full normalization would happen “overnight,” but “I do think we’re going to be in a position to move forward on opening embassies.”
[Obama moves to normalize relations with Cuba as American is released by Havana]
Obama arrived in Jamaica on Wednesday night to launch an effort to reassert close ties with the United States’ nearest neighbors. He told Simpson-Miller on arrival here that he was fulfilling a pledge he made to her years ago.
“See,” Obama told Simpson-Miller when she greeted him at the airport, “I promised you, and I am here.”
When they met again Thursday morning at Simpson-Miller’s office at Jamaica House, Obama embraced her as a long-lost friend. He is only the second U.S. president to visit the island since Ronald Reagan in 1982. Obama also signed her guest book, expressing a hope that the “deep and abiding friendship between our nations continue for generations to come.”
Obama’s visit here is also part of a larger plan, which includes his outreach to Cuba, that is directly related to administration efforts to improve U.S. standing in the region, including in institutions such as the Organization of American States, where Venezuela has used cut-rate oil to buy anti-American support from cash-strapped Caribbean governments.
[Poll shows vast majority of Cubans welcome closer ties with U.S.]
In recent weeks, Caracas, with money problems of its own, has cut energy subsidies to members of the 15-nation Caribbean Community, known as Caricom. With an energy security program announced in January by Vice President Biden, the administration hopes to help fund island infrastructures to receive and use U.S. gas and petroleum, and then use subsidies of its own to ship U.S. energy products here.
The program, which also will be extended to Central America and eventually could include Cuba, is an innovation in U.S. foreign policy. Administration officials believe it is cost-effective as an aid program because of the relatively small Caribbean populations.
In the past, Venezuela has been able to count on a winning bloc of Caribbean votes to oppose U.S. initiatives in institutions in the OAS and elsewhere, which it has regularly used as a platform to denounce American policies in the hemisphere and beyond.
As they try to wean island governments away from Venezuela, administration officials have tried to play down their difficulties with Caracas. Thomas Shannon, a senior aide to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, was in Venezuela on Thursday for meetings with President Nicolás Maduro, to at least give the impression that the United States is trying to smooth over its differences with the Maduro government before the Caricom meeting and the larger Summit of the Americas.
Relations between the two governments, always bumpy, hit a major pothole last month when Obama — acting on a unanimous congressional resolution — imposed sanctions on seven senior Venezuelan officials. What seemed to cause the most upset, however, was boilerplate language in the order that declared Venezuela a “national security threat” to the United States.
[New U.S. sanctions lost in Venezuela’s translation]
Maduro has been able to use that language to gin up considerable outrage on the part of other Latin governments, which have their own problems with Caracas. In full-page ads in newspapers across the region Thursday, Venezuelan-organized civil society groups denounced the Obama order as an “act of aggression” and called for its repeal.
Jamaican Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell described the U.S.-proposed energy arrangement as “comprehensive” and a “good start” in providing energy security for this country and its neighbors.
But Paulwell, who will meet Thursday with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who is accompanying Obama, said Jamaica, at least, is not ready to abandon its relationship with Caracas under the oil subsidy arrangement known as PetroCaribe.
“We do intend to maintain our strong relationship with Venezuela as we build on this new area of relationship with the United States,” he told the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper. “I believe we will be working closely with both countries.”
Caribbean leaders attending the Thursday meeting with Obama will also travel to Panama for the Summit of the Americas.
Read more:
Where U.S.-Cuba relations stand and what may change
At the Summit of the Americas, focus is likely to be on the U.S. and Cuba
Argument between U.S., Venezuela puts Cuba in awkward position
Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national security correspondent for the Washington Post.
Continue reading 10 minutes left
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1ygN39s
0 comments:
Post a Comment