The US government responded to the demands of Raúl Castro with a resounding ‘no’. The territory occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base will remain with its current owner, at least while the administration led by Barack Obama governs.
US Press Secretary Josh Earnest said there will not be negotiations for the return of the military enclave in Cuba. “The Naval Base is not something that we believe should be closed” he said during a press conference at the White House.
About the conditions set by the Cuban president during a regional summit in Costa Rica, he said that “his comments reflect that there is a clear difference between restoring diplomatic relations and make the long process of normalizing relations.”
With those words, he stated that the disagreement in that case would not prevent a future reopening of embassies. He also confirmed that the issue was not included in the discussions of the Obama administration with the government in Havana.
Josefina Vidal, chief negotiator of Cuba to the United States, said she had shared concern about human rights violations in prison built in Guantanamo Bay with US diplomats. Vidal was responding to complaints in this area presented by the US delegation that visited Havana between January 21 and 24.
President Barack Obama wants to close the prison by the moral and economic cost to his country. But this is opposed by Congress, now dominated by a Republican majority that prefers to keep that facility.
The return to Cuba of the territory of the Guantanamo Naval Base is a complaint as old as the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro demanded the withdrawal of the military enclave and the return of the space occupied in October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as a requirement for the withdrawal of nuclear missiles installed by Moscow. The request was ignored by both the Soviet Union and the United States which negotiated a solution without regarding the demands from Havana.
Built in 1903, the Naval Base at Guantanamo occupies 120 square kilometers on both sides of the entrance to the bay of the same name, located on the southern coast of eastern Cuba. It is the last vestige of the Platt Amendment (appendix added to the Cuban Constitution of 1901, as non-negotiable condition for an end to US military intervention in the island).
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez described the Base in 2013 as a “Cuban territory usurped by the United States.” It is the oldest naval station that country keeps outside its borders.
