Obama hopes for U.S. embassy in Cuba before April summit in Panama

Exclusive: Obama hopes for U.S. embassy in Cuba before April summit in
Panama
BY JEFF MASON
WASHINGTON Mon Mar 2, 2015 6:05pm EST

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that he hopes the
United States will open an embassy in Cuba by the time of a Western
Hemisphere summit in Panama in mid-April.

In an interview with Reuters, Obama also cautioned that it will take
more time to fully establish normal relations with Cuba after more than
a half-century rupture.

"My hope is that we will be able to open an embassy, and that some of
the initial groundwork will have been laid" before the April 10-11
Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Obama said.

"Keep in mind that our expectation has never been that we would achieve
full normal relations immediately. There's a lot of work that still has
to be done," he said.

Washington and Havana announced on Dec. 17 that they planned to restore
diplomatic relations following 18 months of secret face-to-face talks.

While critics, including some members of Congress, have called the end
of U.S. attempts to isolate Cuba a gift to the authoritarian Cuban
government, Obama said there are already signs it is prompting Havana to
liberalize.

"We are going down a path in which we can open up our relations to Cuba
in a way that ultimately will prompt more change in Cuba. And we're
already seeing it," the U.S. president said.

"The very fact that, since our announcement, the Cuban government has
begun to discuss ways in which they are going to reorganize their
economy to accommodate for possible foreign investment, that's already
forcing a series of changes that promises to open up more opportunities
for entrepreneurs, more transparency in terms of what's happening in
their economy," he said.

"And that's always been the premise of this policy; that, after 50 years
of a policy that didn't work, we need to try something new that
encourages and ultimately I think forces the Cuban government to engage
in a modern economy. And that will create more space for freedom for the
Cuban people," Obama said.

U.S. and Cuban negotiating teams held a second round of talks in
Washington on Friday on normalizing ties. Both sides said they had made
progress, although they did not set a date for formal renewal of
diplomatic relations that the United States severed 54 years ago.

Josefina Vidal, head of the United States division of the Cuban Foreign
Ministry, told state media on Sunday that Cuba is willing to restore
diplomatic relations as soon as the Obama administration declares its
intent to take Cuba off a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

It was the first time Cuba has said publicly that it is willing to
restore relations before it is removed from the list.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Warren Strobel; Editing by Howard
Goller)

Source: Exclusive: Obama hopes for U.S. embassy in Cuba before April
summit in Panama | Reuters -
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/02/us-usa-obama-cuba-idUSKBN0LY2IL20150302