Obama opens talks with Cuba; Florida GOP'ers protest

With the Obama administration eager to defrost relations between Washington and Havana, the U.S. State Department confirmed it will meet in NYC Tuesday to resume long-suspended talks between the United States and Cuba. In a three-sentence news release, the department said the talks will ``focus on how best to promote safe, legal and orderly migration between Cuba and the United States.''

Florida Republicans criticized the resumption of talks, with Miami Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen saying the Cuban regime has failed to honor the migration accords: ''It is unfortunate that, once again, the Cuban regime is being rewarded with overtures from the U.S. government despite its ongoing atrocities against the Cuban people and policies that undermine U.S. security interests and priorities,'' she said.

And Sen. Mel Martinez called for the administration to ''push for firm commitments'' from the Cuban government, now headed by Raúl Castro. Read morehere.

Obama and the pope talk Cuba, Honduras

President Barack Obama and Pope Benedict XVI met today and among the issues that came up: Cuba and Honduras, says White House Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough.

McDonough said Obama "obviously underscored our policy directions..." and "underscored his particular appreciation for Archbishop Rodriguez, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, who has been playing a very critical role in the ongoing crisis there, and he expressed his appreciation for the fact that he continues to call on all sides to restrain from violence there, which is obviously a critical development."

Archbishop Oscar Andrés Rodríguez last Saturday called on ousted President Manuel Zelaya last week to reconsider his decision to return to the country. He also called for unity among the Honduran people and asked world leaders to reconsider their support of Zelaya.

 

Dissident disappointment

The woman who accepted a democracy award on behalf of her Cuban dissident brother and four others says she was sorry not to get an audience with President Barack Obama.

"Bertha Antunez...said today she was naturally disappointed at not having the opportunity to tell their stories directly to President Obama of the harsh treatment they have received from the regime for speaking out for basic human rights."

But a statement from the National Endowment for Democracy said Antunez and the dissidents "are encouraged by the President's statement commending the award recipients for 'standing up for the right of the Cuban people to freely determine their country's future and his call for all political prisoners to be unconditionally released and allowed to fully participate in a democratic future in Cuba."

An administration official says Obama had a town hall meeting on health care Wednesday night and nothing should be read into the fact he wasn't able to meet with Antunez.

President Bush had met with the honorees since 2005, which prompted NED to ask Obama for the meeting, a spokeswoman said.

Obama disses the Cuban dissidents?

A statement from the White House today says President Obama "would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and commend the National Endowment for Democracy's 2009 Democracy Award recipients Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, Librado Linares, Ivan Hernandez Carrillo, and Iris Tamara Perez Aguilera and all the brave men and women who are standing up for the right of the Cuban people to freely determine their country's future."

But the award organizer told the Washington Post that unlike in past years, the representative who received the award on behalf of the dissidents was not invited to the White House. (None of the actual awardees were allowed to leave Cuba to accept the award.)

"Message to ... the Castro brothers," the Post opined archly: "We can work with you. Message to Cuba's democratic opposition: We don't have time for you."

Mel to Obama: Don't free the Cuban Five

Mel Martinez is urging President Obama not to release the Cuban Five, a group of convicted spies for Cuba whose final appeal got rejected this week by the Supreme Court.

The five, arrested in 1998 as members of La Red Avispa (the Wasp Network), were convicted of acting as illegal agents for Cuban leader Fidel Castro's government. Three were also found guilty of espionage conspiracy.

Martinez notes in a letter to Obama that the Cuban government has suggested a prisoner exchange for the 5 men.

"There should be no moral equivalence between these five and the legitimate prisoners of conscience in Cuba, whose only 'crime' in the eyes of the Cuban regime was attempting to exercise their fundamental human rights," Martinez says in the letter. "Your administration should make it clear that the premature release of these five spies is not open for discussion."

The letter comes as the administration gets ready to restart talks with Cuba on migration and other issues.

Broken elbow delays Hillary Clinton's first visit to accused Cuba spy's old stomping grounds

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is postponing her first trip to the department's Foreign Service Institute, following surgery for a fractured right elbow.

The Arlington, Va. institute prepares State Department diplomats for overseas assignment with history, politics and language classes. It's where former State Department employee Walter Kendall  Myers -- now accused of spying for Cuba -- first began working for the department, as a contract instructor in 1977.

A state department spokesman said Clinton had planned to make the trip today, but that it will be rescheduled.

Martinez: Slow Cuba talks

The Obama administration is working with Havana to finalize dates to resume long-suspended discussions between the two countries, as Cuban officials signal their interest in expanding the talks beyond migration.

A State Department spokesman said Thursday that the agency is looking to confirm dates for the talks, which had been held twice a year until they were suspended in 2004 by the Bush administration. U.S. officials last month delivered a diplomatic note to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., asking to resume the biannual migration talks in a bid to 'reaffirm both sides' commitment to safe, legal and orderly migration.''

Critics of renewing the talks until Cuba has shown some democratic change pointed to the recent arrest of a former State Department employee and his wife on spy charges, suggesting that the talks be postponed until Congress has considered the breach of security posed by the two accused spies.

''I'm surprised State is still pushing for a hasty reinstatement of the talks,'' Florida Sen. Mel Martinez said. "There are legitimate concerns about the extent of the recent espionage uncovered by the FBI. What's the rush to conduct talks with the Cuban regime when we still don't have a full damage assessment of the regime's covert efforts?''

More here.

Mack points to Cuba spies to argue against pulling the plug on TV Marti

Rep. Connie Mack cited the curious case of the retirees accused of spying for Cuba for decades in making his case to keep anti-Cuban government station TV Martí on the air. Congressional critics would like to pull the plug, arguing that the programming is a waste of taxpayer dollars because Cuba blocks the station's signal and it never reaches Cuban homes.

Mack argued that arrest of Walter Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers is a reminder "of the continued threat the Castro brothers are to the United States.

''This couple shows us that Cuba is not a relic of our Cold War past,'' Mack said, ``but instead an immediate and present threat.''

His remarks came as the couple asked a judge to let them out of jail until their trial. Read more here.

Neighbors to Castro fan: Mow your lawn!

Rep. Laura Richardson -- who met in April with Fidel Castro -- has ticked off her California neighbors for letting her house go to seed.

"What I don't get is how she has the time to visit with Fidel Castro but doesn't have time for her own house," neighbor John Bailey told the Los Angeles Times. "If you can't manage your own household, you probably shouldn't get involved in international affairs."

Richardson and several members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Castro in April, reporting that he was "very healthy" and interested in talks with the U.S. They got panned by the Washington Post, among others, for ignoring the island's dissidents.

 

Martinez: Impressed with Sotomayor

Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez says he was impressed with President Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court -- but is waiting to decide how he'll vote after Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.

They're sked for July 13, the Washington Post reports.