End of Cuba embargo 'way down the road': US
The United States cautioned yesterday that any lifting of its embargo on Cuba was "way down the road" despite hopes raised at a Summit of the Americas by President Barack Obama, who opened the door to talks with the communist island.
"That's way down the road, and it's going to depend on what Cuba did, Cuba does going forward," Obama's economic advisor Larry Summers said in an interview on US television.
Unprecedented overtures by Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro in recent days have fuelled a surge in optimism that the two countries, whose enmity was forged in the early days of the Cold War half a century ago, could launch what Obama called "a new beginning."
Both leaders said they were willing to discuss topics that Havana had previously refused to address with Washington, including human rights and political prisoners.
At stake is the 47-year-old economic embargo Washington imposed on Cuba in the early years of Fidel Castro's revolution. Virtually all of Latin America is united is demanding the embargo be lifted.
Obama, who Sunday met with Central American leaders at the summit in Trinidad and Tobago, has highlighted his recent decision to lift curbs on Cuban-Americans' contacts with Cuba.
But he said any further US moves were contingent on concrete signs of policy change by Raul Castro.
"Actions are always going to speak louder than words," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, accompanying Obama, said Saturday.
Latin American leaders, though, have also been pressing the United States to give more concessions.
Obama's "intentions have to be translated into concrete policy," Argentine President Cristina Kirchner said Saturday.
"We still haven't seen any changes towards Cuba," Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said, though he added he now viewed Obama's administration "with a lot of sympathy."
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in an interview published by the Spanish newspaper ABC, said Obama's decision to lift restrictions against Havana was "a first step in the right direction."
He added, though, that it was "important not to wait for a gesture from Cuba for other steps to be taken."
Cuba's exclusion from regional bodies such as the Organization of American States -- from which it was kicked out in 1962 under US pressure -- "remains an anomaly," Lula also said.
Nevertheless, it appeared Obama's charm offensive paid off at the summit, especially with Cuba's strongest ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez, who vociferously criticized the administration of Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, said late Saturday it was "possible" that Washington and Caracas could return their respective ambassadors to their posts.
The countries ordered out each other's ambassadors last September, as bilateral relations plunged to a new low.
Acting State Department spokesman Robert Wood said "this is a positive development that will help advance US interests, and the State Department will now work to further this shared goal."
Chavez also took every opportunity at the summit to be photographed shaking Obama's hand, and gave the US leader a gift of a book -- though one that argued that Latin America had been the victim of exploitation by the world's big powers since colonial times.
Obama, an author of two bestsellers himself, later told reporters he thought Chavez was offering a tome he had written, and said "I was going to give him one of mine."
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