Cuba Welcomes Ties with Costa Rica

HAVANA TIMES, March 19 – The Cuban government accepted, through a Foreign Ministry Declaration published today by the local press, “re-establishing diplomatic relations between Costa Rica and Cuba.”

On Wednesday Costa Rican President Oscar Arias announced his decision to renew ties with the Caribbean country, which were broken off unilaterally by Costa Rica in 1961.

On the same day El Salvador’s president-elect Mauricio Funes said that when he takes office he will fulfill a campaign promise to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba.

When relations are normalized between Cuba and both Costa Rica and El Salvador, the only country on the American continent without such diplomatic ties with Cuba will be the United States.

President Obama has said that his government is reassessing US-Cuba policy but has not publicly stated any plans for change in the nearly 50-year US economic blockade of the island or the travel ban that prohibits ordinary US citizens from visiting Cuba without special US government permission.