Havana expected to be dropped from list of state sponsors of terrorism, while John Kerry and Cuban counterpart sit down for highest-level talks in decades

Barack Obama is poised to remove Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, marking another important step toward rapprochement between the former cold war enemies.

The president said on Thursday that the State Department had finished the review of Cuba’s status that he ordered in December when he announced moves to normalise diplomatic relations.

“That review has been completed,” Obama told reporters in Jamaica, where he is attending a meeting of Caribbean leaders. “I won’t make a formal announcement today about what those recommendations are until I have them.”

Obama and Raúl Castro set to meet in Panama and test US-Cuba thaw Read more

US officials have hinted that a breakthrough may be possible at the Summit of the Americas in Panama. If Cuba is removed from the list, it would ease the government’s ability to operate in Washington, where the Cuban “Interest Section” is currently blocked from having a bank account. The symbolic importance would be even greater.

Obama was due to arrive in Panama on Thursday evening for a summit on Friday that will be his first appearance with Cuban president Raúl Castro since the two leaders announced their deal. As their historic meeting approached, White House officials said John Kerry, the US secretary of state, held discussions with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, behind closed doors at a Panama City hotel on Thursday in the highest-level meeting between the two sides since the earliest days of the Cuban revolution more than half a century ago.

“Secretary Kerry and Cuban foreign minister Rodriguez had a lengthy and very constructive discussion this evening. The two agreed they made progress and that we would continue to work to resolve outstanding issues,” a senior US state department official said.

Although they are not scheduled to hold an official bilateral meeting, Obama and Castro are thought likely to interact on the sidelines. The handshake between them is expected to be one of the lasting images from the Obama presidency.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest President Barack Obama said on Thursday that the US State Department had completed its review of whether to remove Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism but that he had not received a recommendation yet from his advisers.

In Panama, it will compete for attention, however, with growing tensions with Venezuela and disruptions by activists.

Noisy confrontations between pro and anti-government activists from Cuba and Venezuela marked the opening of the Civil Society Forum that precedes the two-day gathering of state leaders on Friday and Saturday.

Police were called into several workshops on Thursday as pro-government Cuban activists held up proceedings for several hours.

The previous days, several dozen pro-government Cuban and Venezuelan NGO members disrupted the plenary on Wednesday, saying they refused to sit alongside dissidents compatriots, who they described as “mercenaries” for the US.

Waving their national flags, they blocked the entry into the forum, sang Guantanamera, and chanted “Cuba Socialista”, “Fidel, Fidel” and “Clinton Out” in reference to former US president Bill Clinton, who gave the forum’s inaugural speech.

There were also reports of fisticuffs between pro and anti-government Cuban groups outside the country’s embassy.

The United States said on Thursday that it was “deeply concerned” by the reports of attacks on civil society representatives in Panama. “We condemn those who use violence against peaceful protesters,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.

The protesters criticised the US for labelling Venezuela a “threat to national security” in a recent executive order to impose sanctions on seven officials accused of human rights violations.

President Nicolas Maduro and his allies in the Alba grouping of leftwing “Bolivarian socialist” nations have tabled a summit motion condemning the US move. As unanimity is needed for the final declaration, this means Panama is likely to be the third consecutive summit to end without an agreement.

Obama is unlikely, however, to be as isolated as he was at the last summit, where every other country, except Canada, called for Cuba to be admitted and several leaders refused to attend because of its omission.

US officials acknowledge this regional hostility was a major factor in December’s rapprochement with Cuba.

“Frankly, it made no sense that the United States consistently, essentially made the decision to isolate ourselves from the rest of the Americas because we were clinging to a policy that wasn’t working,” said Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications.

“So we would anticipate that this does help begin to remove significant impediment to having a more constructive engagement in the hemisphere because we demonstrated an openness to engage all of the countries in the Americas, and to include Cuba.”

Washington’s critics accuse Obama of simply maintaining a longstanding US policy of interference in Latin America, evident, some say, in its approach to Venezuela.

“What the sanctions also made clear, for those who didn’t already know, is that President Obama’s opening to Cuba represented exactly zero change in Washington’s overall strategy toward the region,” said Mark Weisbrot, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “The intention of expanding commercial and diplomatic relations with Cuba was mainly to pursue a more effective strategy of undermining the Cuban government--and all of the left governments in the region.”

But Venezuela – long the sharpest thorn in the side of the US in the region – is in a far weaker position than in the previous two summits. Maduro lacks the charisma of his predecessor Hugo Chávez, the fall in oil prices has weakened its influence and economy, and the government is struggling to cope with deadly protests, shortages of basic goods and the highest inflation rate in the world.

Venezuela clamps down further on dissent amid deepening economic woes Read more

With the crisis growing, Maduro is finding it hard to rally regional support. When he called Dilma Rousseff to discuss the summit this week, the Brazilian president coolly stated that her government was ready to help him strengthen dialogue with the domestic opposition and welcomed Venezuela’s willingness to reduce tension with the US.

The change in the economic climate is also working in Obama’s favour. Three years ago the US economy was still emerging from the post-crisis doldrums while Latin America was benefitting from a Chinese-driven commodities boom. Today, however, GDP growth is South America is expected to be nearly zero this year, while the US enjoys rapid growth and the strongest dollar in a decade. Pragmatic regional leaders may calculate that they can no longer afford to upset Washington.