Roberta Jacobson and Josefina Vidal, the representatives of the United States and Cuba at the negotiating table to restore diplomatic relations, respectively, will meet Monday for the third time since the beginning of the bilateral approach announced the 17D Presidents Obama and Raul Castro.
A note from the US State Department published on its official website, indicates that Jacobson, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, traveled to Havana on Sunday. On Monday a series of talks with the Cuban negotiating team, led by the Director General of United States of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Josefina Vidal, will begin.
The meeting is a continuation of “discussions on restoring diplomatic ties and reopening embassies,” says the State Department. It adds in its note that “the parties have been communicating since the last meeting in February in Washington.”
The leading group
As usual, each round of negotiations has been preceded by a ‘move’ by the American side with regard to bilateral relations. This time, Jacobson’s visit is preceded in just 24 hours by a delegation of 80 US businessmen and social leaders of the city of New Orleans.
The announcement has caused great media impact, because it is the first nonstop flight from the southern state of Louisiana to Havana, since 1958. Like most previous US delegations, this one is making an exploratory trip to identify business opportunities and routes for cooperation between the two countries. Above all, they will focus on the industrial sphere, although energy development will include the care of the environment and coping with natural disasters.
According to The Huffington Post, visitors are grouped into two local organizations: International Cuba Society and At the Threshold. Both, along with the University of Havana coordinated the celebration of the “Cuba Today” Conference, the program also includes cultural exchanges and educational meetings.
To complete the warmth of the third round of US-Cuba, Wednesday, through an official note, the Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba SA (ETECSA) confirmed establishing a direct interconnection between the US and Cuba.
The announcement is the result of a service agreement signed with the American company IDT Domestic Telecom, Inc. (IDT). According to ETECSA, restoring direct communications with the United States favor initially the quality of voice calls service.
The measure will have a positive impact on both people and their economic benefits could allow a further increase or extension of communications. Thus told the Spanish newspaper El País, Bill Ulrey, vice president of IDT and responsible for external relations of the firm. The executive said that about two million Cuban exiles who maintain close contact with their families are “a significant market.”
The American company called the agreement an “important first step in the liberalization of telecommunications between the US and Cuba “. The second will be, according to Ulrey, a gradual decline in prices of calls, which will happen in the near future, “as more US companies close similar agreements with Cuba,” he said.
Telecommunications is not a declared Jacobson’s goal in her visit to Havana. However, it is expected that bilateral cooperation in this field will spread after the visit, between March 24 and 26, of a delegation of members from various federal agencies.
El País says the commission will be led by the coordinator of International Communications of the State Department, Danny Sepulveda, who among other topics will discuss with the Cuban authorities the possibility of extending access to internet.
