Cuba in communication with US, says Cuban diplomat, as Trump tightens screws
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Cuba's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernandez de Cossio's Feb 2 statements hinted that Cuba and the US are in conversation.
PHOTO: REUTERS
HAVANA – Cuba and the US are in communication, a Cuban diplomat told Reuters on Feb 2, although he said the exchanges have not yet evolved into a formal “dialogue”.
Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said that the US government was aware that Cuba was “ready to have a serious, meaningful and responsible dialogue”.
“We have had (an) exchange of messages, we have embassies, we have had communications, but we cannot say we have had a table of dialogue,” he said in an interview at the Foreign Ministry building in Havana.
Mr De Cossio’s statements on Feb 2 represent the first hint from Cuba that the two sides are in conversation, even if in a limited fashion, after tensions flared earlier in January between the two countries following the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro
US President Donald Trump on Feb 1 said the US had begun talks with “the highest people in Cuba”
“I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba,” Mr Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Feb 1.
Cuba had previously denied any talks with the US.
Oil woes
Friction has increased in recent weeks as the US has moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including that from ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and transportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts, even in the capital Havana.
Mr Trump said on Feb 2 that Mexico would stop sending oil to Cuba, as he ramped up a pressure campaign on the Caribbean nation.
Mr De Cossio said he expected the US push to halt fuel exports to Cuba would eventually backfire.
“The US... is attempting to force every country in the world not to provide fuel to Cuba. Can that be sustained in the long run?” he said.
“Is every country in the world going to accept that the US tell them to whom they can export their national products?”
The two neighbouring countries have been at odds since former leader Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, but a crippling economic crisis on the island and stepped-up pressure from the Trump administration have recently brought tensions to a head. REUTERS
