Obama, Castro set for landmark talks
What you need to know:
- Cuba, US poised to renew diplomatic relations
- The White House indicated that Obama was not yet ready to decide whether to remove Havana from the blacklist
PANAMA CITY, Saturday
Hours after shaking hands, US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro head into historic talks in Panama on Saturday in their efforts to bury decades of animosity.
Taking their bid to restore diplomatic ties to a new level, Obama and Castro will have a discussion on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas in Panama City, US officials said.
The two leaders already said hello late Friday, greeting each other and shaking hands — a gesture rich in symbolism — as UN chief Ban Ki-moon and other leaders looked on, before the 35-nation summit’s inauguration.
They shook hands only once before, at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in 2013.
DEAD RELATIONS
The face-to-face talks will be the climax of their surprise announcement on December 17 that, after 18 months of secret negotiations, they would seek to normalise relations that broke off in 1961.
“We’re in new territory here,” said senior Obama advisor Ben Rhodes. “This is not just about two leaders sitting down together,” he said, citing Obama’s decision to ease trade and travel restrictions with Cuba.
The format of the meeting has yet to be confirmed, but Rhodes said the leaders would likely talk about negotiations to restore diplomatic ties and disagreements.
“As we move toward the process of normalisation, we’ll have our differences, government to government, with Cuba on many issues,” Obama told a regional civil society forum on Friday.
Cuba has demanded to be removed from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism before embassies can reopen, noting this has blocked its access to bank credit.
The White House indicated that Obama was not yet ready to decide whether to remove Havana from the blacklist, but that it could not rule out an announcement in Panama.
