Costa Rica-Cuba Rapprochement Possible

HAVANA TIMES, March 16 – Almost 50 years after Costa Rica broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba, ties between the two countries could be on the mend, said Costa Rican Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno in statements to that Central American country’s press.

According to Stagno, the continental atmosphere is propitious for a dialogue between the two governments.

Cuba currently has diplomatic relations with all countries in the Americas except Costa Rica, El Salvador and the United States.

With the victory Sunday of FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes in El Salvador, it is expected that relations between Cuba and that Central American country will be restored.

That would leave the governments of Oscar Arias in Costa Rica and Barack Obama in the US with the challenge to join the rest of the continent in regards to Cuba.

The topic, as well as the half-century US blockade on Cuba, are sure to be brought up at the April 17-19 Americas Summit in Trinidad and Tobago. The meeting will be Obama’s first with the continent’s leaders.

Meanwhile, the US president met over the weekend in Washington with Brazil’s President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva who reportedly made a pitch to the US leader to set a new, less aggressive, tone to US-Latin American relations and seek dialogue with countries like Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia.