WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States won't curtail its support for democracy and human rights activists in Cuba as part of any agreement to restore embassies between the two countries after a half-century interruption, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America said Tuesday.
But Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson did say that more U.S.-Cuba talks on re-establishing full diplomatic relations were planned for later this month.
Testifying at the first Senate hearing chaired by Sen. Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and likely presidential candidate, Jacobson faced a mix of policy and political questions related to President Barack Obama's decision to tighten ties with a long-time American enemy. Beyond the packed gallery, the sizeable presence of television media from Rubio's home state of Florida was unusual for a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee session.
Rubio asked Jacobson and State Department human rights chief Tom Malinowski if they would be willing to sacrifice human rights in an embassy agreement. He read from an interview that Josefina Vidal, Cuba's top negotiator, gave The Associated Press after two days of historic talks in Havana last month in which she tied the establishment of embassies to reduced U.S. support for Cuban dissidents.
"We would not curtail the activities we're doing now," Jacobson answered. When Rubio pressed her for a firm commitment, she said she couldn't imagine a U.S. embassy operating in Havana under such conditions and suggested that Vidal's comments may have been more posturing than an actual negotiating position.
Jacobson's trip to Havana last month made her the highest-level U.S. official to visit Cuban capital in more than three decades. The talks encompassed the details of reconstituting embassies in each other's capitals, managing migration flows and the much larger process of normalizing ties between governments with unresolved issues ranging from fugitives to financial claims.