Caribbean & Central America - May 2015 (ISSN 1741-4458)

The next round of US-Cuba talks takes place at the State Department on 21 May. Both sides are signalling that this may be the final round in the effort to restore full bilateral diplomatic relations and re-open embassies.

This is the fourth round of talks between senior US and Cuban representatives - led on the US side by the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roberta Jacobson, and on the Cuban side by Josefina Vidal, the director for US affairs at the Cuban foreign ministry - since ‘17-D’, when President Barack Obama announced that the US would begin a historic re-engagement with Havana. There have been two prior rounds in Havana and one in the US capital (with separate, lower level talks on other issues also ongoing).

These efforts are being driven by a strong and pragmatic political will on both sides. Obstacles are being dealt with slowly but surely, and where the two sides fail to agree, those disagreements are put to one side, so as to move forward. Both parties know that the window of opportunity is preciously short ahead of the 2016 US presidential election. The continued support and encouragement of the Vatican is also vital. President Raúl Castro met Pope Francis in Rome in mid-May. The Vatican has announced that the Pope will visit Cuba and the US in September, marking the culmination of his historic diplomacy between the two neighbours.

President Obama sees in Cuba a key legacy and is determined to make as much progress from the US executive side as possible, with a view to leaving office having solidified public support for the eventual removal of the US embargo on Cuba, which can only be lifted by an act of congress and then, under the terms of the 1996 Helms Burton Act codifying the embargo, only upon the departure from office of the Castros. Raúl Castro, who formally succeeded his brother Fidel in 2008, has pledged to step down in 2018.

Box In another important development ahead of the fourth round, Cuba has finally managed to re-establish a banking relationship with a US financial institution (reportedly Florida-based). For the past year, the interests section in Washington and Cuba’s United Nations delegation in New York have had no access to US banking services (after the US bank with which it formerly dealt, M&T, withdrew services from foreign interests), forcing diplomatic staff to rely on cash sent from Havana to run the two offices, complicating operations. End box

"I don’t want to sound too Pollyannaish . . . but I do think we’re closer than we have been,” a US official said on 19 May, speaking on condition of anonymity as per State Department rules. “I think my [Cuban] counterparts are coming up here with a desire to get this done…. I wouldn’t be even remotely optimistic if I did not feel that we were making progress”. Gustavo Machín, Josefina Vidal’s deputy, was similarly optimistic at a Havana news conference the previous day. “We don’t see obstacles, just questions to resolve and discuss together,” he stated. He noted that Cuba’s removal from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, which officially takes effect on 29 May, had created “the right bilateral context to move forward.”

Echoing President Castro, Machín complained about what Castro has termed “illegal” activities at the US interests’ section in Havana (namely US democracy promotion programmes, including journalism training for Cubans). While the Cubans complain about US interference, a key issue for the US is the efforts by Cuba to limit the freedom of movement for diplomatic staff. Yet it seems fairly apparent that these operational complaints are not going to prevent the restoration of the two interests’ sections to full embassy status. "We should reach a common interpretation on what the rules of the Vienna convention establish," Machín said.

• US embassy

US President Barack Obama is obliged to inform the US congress at least 15 days prior to opening an embassy in Cuba. Both governments would also have to notify the Swiss government - which serves as the ‘protecting power’ for the interests’ sections in Havana and Washington in the absence of formal diplomatic ties - that its services are no longer required. US congressional Republicans opposed to the re-engagement with Cuba have vowed to reject whomever Obama nominates for the Cuban ambassadorial position on point of principle, raising the prospect of an embassy without an ambassador.