MEXICO CITY – The United States and Cuba have ended their third round of talks on re-establishing diplomatic relations as abruptly as the meeting was announced, with no breakthrough on sticking points and in an atmosphere of rising tension over Venezuela.
A small group of U.S. officials led by Roberta Jacobson, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, arrived in Havana on Sunday and left Monday, without any public comment and despite earlier remarks by senior officials at the State Department who contemplated an open-ended meeting that could last to midweek.
The State Department made no comment.
A short statement was
released Tuesday by the Cuban Foreign Ministry acknowledging the meeting and saying that it was conducted in a “professional atmosphere.” Talks would continue in the future, it said.
Both sides have been working toward an agreement, anticipating setting a date for reopening embassies before heads of state from the hemisphere gather in Panama on April 10-11 for the Summit of the Americas, which both President Barack Obama and President Raúl Castro plan to attend.
The Cuban statement Tuesday came as Castro arrived in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, for a meeting of a bloc of left-leaning nations to show solidarity with President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. Maduro has rallied patriotic sentiments in Venezuela after the United States called his country an “extraordinary threat” to national security and imposed new sanctions on several Venezuelan military and law enforcement officials it has accused of violating human rights and democratic due process.
In Cuba, previous rounds of the U.S.-Cuba talks attracted much attention, but media paid scant notice this time and focused on Castro’s visit to Venezuela, Cuba’s prime economic benefactor and an ally in socialism. They also reported on a letter of a support to Maduro from Fidel Castro denouncing “threats and impositions.”
Even before the meeting, State Department officials, who announced the meeting Friday, had sought to play down expectations, saying it would be a roll-up-the-sleeves working session and would probably not include news media appearances.
The main hurdle for Cuba is its continued presence on the State Department’s list of nations said to support international terrorism. When Obama announced in December that the United States and Cuba would seek to restore normal relations, he suggested that it did not belong on the list and ordered a review.
