Cuba warns US against preconditions for talks

A top official said Cuba is willing to discuss everything with the Obama administration, but it won’t give up its form of government in talks to improve relations.

The comments by the director of Cuba’s Foreign Ministry’s North American Department echoed the sentiments of President Raul Castro, who has said repeatedly that officials would be willing to sit down for direct talks with US leaders as long as his country’s sovereignty is not threatened.

President Barack Obama has suggested it may be time for a new beginning with Cuba, and the White House authorised unlimited travel and money transfer for Americans with relatives in Cuba.

But his administration has said it would like Cuba to respond by making small political and social changes to its single-party communist system.

Mr Castro has bristled at that suggestion.

“Cuba cannot be asked to give up its form of government as a condition to establish normal relations with the United States. That position is a nonstarter. It will lead us nowhere,” the Cuban official, Josefina Vidal, said at the start of a Cuban academic conference in Canada.

“In doing so, the United States would make the same mistake that previous governments have done.”

She said dialogue should occur without preconditions.