Cuba, US discuss direct mail service

Posted on Monday, 09.16.13

Cuba, US discuss direct mail service
BY PETER ORSI
ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAVANA -- U.S. and Cuban representatives met in Havana on Monday for
renewed talks on re-establishing direct mail service, 50 years after it
was severed amid Cold War tensions relations.

The American delegation was led by Lea Emerson, executive director for
international postal affairs at the U.S. Postal Service, and included
State Department officials. They met with Cuban counterparts, including
Johana Tablada, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry's U.S. affairs
division.

A State Department communique called the talks "fruitful" and said
delegates would tour Cuban mail facilities Tuesday.

"The re-establishment of direct transportation of mail between the
United States and Cuba is consistent with our goal of promoting the free
flow of information to, from and within Cuba," it said.

Cuba said in a statement that the discussions were "respectful" and both
sides agreed to meet again in the coming months.

Mail service between the two countries was canceled in 1963. Currently,
letters mailed from the United States to Cuba and vice versa take
circuitous paths through third countries even though just 90 miles of
sea separates the island nation from Florida.

Monday's meeting follows similar negotiations in Washington in June.
Cuba and the United States also held migration discussions in July.

Both sets of talks had been on hold since 2009, when USAID development
subcontractor Alan Gross was caught bringing restricted communications
equipment into Cuba.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison under a statute governing crimes
against the state, although he argues that he never intended to harm
Cuba and was only setting up Internet networks for island Jewish groups.

Resumption of talks this year was seen as a positive sign for relations,
even if the two sides are still far apart on many issues such as Gross'
detention, the imprisonment of five Cuban agents in the United States
and Washington's 51-year-old economic embargo against Cuba.

With no formal diplomatic relations between Havana and Washington, such
discussions have in the past served as a pretext to talk about other issues.

In 2009, a senior State Department stayed in Havana nearly a week after
mail talks and met privately with Cuba's deputy foreign minister in the
highest-level contact the two governments had had in decades.

Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter-Orsi

Source: "HAVANA: Cuba, US discuss direct mail service - Florida Wires -
MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/16/3630861/cuba-us-discuss-direct-mail-service.html