Article content continued

Pena shed little light on Canada’s role, except to say that Ottawa was a good place to hide from the prying eyes of the news media.

“Nothing was filtered to the press,” the envoy told an audience at Ottawa’s Carleton University that included numerous foreign diplomats, academics, Foreign Affairs officials and the vice chief of the Canadian Forces.

“Ottawa was the ideal place for that.”

U.S. officials have said their country’s first talks with the Cubans took place in Canada in June 2013. The Canadian Press has previously reported it was one of seven meetings that took place over the course of the next year and a half at locations in Toronto and Ottawa.

Since then, there has been no progress towards achieving the next concrete steps — reopening embassies and removing Cuba from a State Department list of terror-sponsoring nations.

“It is a nonsense. Cuba has been there for more than 20 years,” said Pena, who expressed the hope that Obama would see to his country’s deletion from the list.

“We hope that very soon Cuba will be removed from there.”

Pena also echoed his president, Raul Castro, who has criticized Obama’s decision to list Venezuela — Cuba’s top ally and trading partner — as an enemy of the United States. The U.S. move, which has included sanctions against seven Venezuelan citizens, has raised concerns about the possibility of progress on the Cuban rapprochement.