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Barack Obama

HAVANA. — The highest-level US delegation to Cuba in 35 years was expected to begin talks yesterday aimed at restoring diplomatic ties and eventually normalising relations between two adversaries who have been locked in Cold War-era hostilities.The two days of meetings are the first since US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced on December 17 they had reached a historic breakthrough after 18 months of secret negotiations.

Obama has set the US on a path toward removing economic sanctions and Washington’s 53-year-old trade embargo against the island, telling Congress in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday that “we are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date.”

Talks were to focus on immigration yesterday and turn to restoring diplomatic ties today.

Both sides are also expected to outline longer-term goals.

While Cuba will seek the repeal of Washington’s 53-year-old economic embargo and ask to be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, the Americans will press the one-party state for greater human rights. On immigration, Cuba has said it will protest US laws that welcome Cubans into the United States once they set foot on American soil, an exceptional policy that Cuba says promotes people-trafficking and dangerous journeys across the Florida Straits on flimsy vessels. Obama has the executive authority to restore diplomatic ties but needs the Republican-controlled Congress to lift the economic embargo.

A senior Cuban foreign ministry official on Tuesday drew a distinction between restoring diplomatic ties and the broader issue of normalising relations.

“Cuba isn’t normalising relations with the United States. Cuba is re-establishing diplomatic relations with the United States.  The normalisation of relations is a much longer process and much more complicated process,” the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. — Reuters.