US and Cuban officials launched historic talks to shed their Cold War-era hostility Wednesday, complimenting each other on the first day's progress despite persistent differences over migration policy. Each side described the first of two days of talks as productive and constructive even though they remained deeply at odds over the exodus of Cubans to the United States.
The meetings in Havana follow the historic decision by US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro in December to seek normal ties. Roberta Jacobson, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, landed in Havana around midday to participate in Thursday's talks on reopening embassies and returning ambassadors for the first time since 1961.
She is the highest-ranking US official to set foot in Cuba since 1980. Her deputy, Alex Lee, represented the US side on the first day in Havana's Convention Center, sitting across from the head of the Cuban foreign ministry's US affairs department, Josefina Vidal. "The productive and collaborative nature of today's discussion proves that despite the clear differences that remain between our countries, the United States and Cuba can find opportunities to advance our mutually shared interests," Lee said after the talks.
For her part, Vidal said: "Cuba aspires to have a normal relationship with the United States, in the broader sense but also in the area of migration." But Vidal criticised US migration policies which she said encourage a brain drain, saying that they "don't correspond with the current bilateral context of relations between Cuba and the United States."
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