U.S.: Guantanamo “not on table” in talks with Cuba

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson on Wednesday rejected including returning to Havana the territory at Guantanamo, Cuba, where the U.S. naval base is located in the ongoing talks on rapprochement with the communist island.

“The issue of Guantanamo is not on the table in these conversations,” Jacobson told the House Foreign Relations Committee. Although Cuba had raised the issue, “we are not interested in discussing that,” she said.

Jacobson, who is in charge of the U.S. government’s negotiating team in the talks to resume normal relations, ruled out any possibility that the United States would use the territory, where the maximum security prison housing terrorism suspects is located, as a bargaining chip.

Lawmakers asked the diplomat on several occasions about the issue after last week Cuban President Raul Castro demanded that Guantanamo be returned to Cuba during an international summit in Costa Rica.

Washington began leasing the territory from Cuba in 1903 and, although the leasing conditions changed in the 1980s, the Castro government has not accepted any payments for it because it claims that it is occupied territory.

Meanwhile, Jacobson also admitted that the Cuban government does not want to include in the rapprochement dialogue the possible repatriation of U.S. fugitives currently living on the island.

She said that Havana authorities are not interested in talking about the matter, although she added that it is one of the Barack Obama administration’s priorities in the negotiations.

The United States wants fugitives such as Joanne Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Army wanted by U.S. courts for killing a police officer in the 1970s, returned to this country to stand trial.

Chesimard, who now goes by the name Assata Shakur, was the first woman to be included on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, and huge rewards have been offered for her capture.

Cuba’s provision of asylum and shelter to several fugitives from U.S. justice, including members of the Basque ETA terrorist group and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas, have been a key reason why Washington has included Cuba on its list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

The two countries announced on Dec. 17, 2014, the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, and preliminary talks to do so were held two weeks ago. A second round of negotiations will be held later this month.