Cuban Reply to U.S. Visa Proposal Inches Talks Forward : Migration: Although an agreement on the refugee crisis still appears elusive, the response is called ‘a serious paper.’ Eventual pact is expected.

Cuba offered a few new concessions Tuesday in the migration talks with the United States, but agreement remained out of reach--even though U.S. officials expect to settle the dispute eventually because it is in the interest of both countries to end the chaotic raft flotilla in the Florida Straits.

Chief Cuban delegate Ricardo Alarcon presented Havana’s written reply to the latest U.S. proposal, which involved an increase in its initial offer to grant more than 20,000 immigrant visas a year. After a 45-minute meeting, the two sides agreed to meet again today, indicating some progress in the delicate and protracted talks, which Washington had intended to end after Tuesday if Cuba’s position was intractable.

A senior State Department official said that the Cuban response, apparently approved at the highest levels in Havana, “was more focused in on immigration issues, but it still has some things that we couldn’t accept,” a clear reference to Cuba’s attempt to broaden the negotiations to cover issues such as Washington’s three-decade-old economic embargo that the Clinton Administration is unwilling to discuss. Cuba has argued that the embargo is responsible for the island’s deplorable economic condition, which, in turn, is the cause of the flood of refugees.

Another U.S. official said: “It is a serious paper. It is a basis for discussion.” He said that the U.S. delegation will try to find out during today’s meeting whether the Cubans are interested in an agreement limited to ways of ending the current refugee crisis.

U.S. officials are convinced that Cuban President Fidel Castro eventually will cut a deal to stop the daily spectacle of desperate rafters risking death to escape his island. These officials said that an orderly system of emigration will serve Castro’s purposes far better than the disorganized flood of refugees.

Nevertheless, officials conceded, the United States needs a settlement far more urgently than Cuba does, permitting Castro to drag out the negotiations, both to irritate Washington and to allow him to make sure that he gets the best deal the Administration is willing to make.

With the Coast Guard and Navy rescuing an average of 1,000 or more Cubans a day, the space in internment camps at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Panama will soon be overwhelmed. U.S. officials said that the Administration can continue to cope with the refugees for a while longer but not indefinitely.

The Coast Guard picked up 649 Cubans by 10 p.m. EDT Tuesday after rescuing 1,129 on Monday.

“We’ve got to outlast them (Cuban government) and figure out what it takes to outlast them,” one State Department official said.

Some officials believe that Castro is reaching for more than Washington is willing to give to resolve the crisis. “He is overplaying the very thin hand that he’s got,” one Administration official said.

But other government analysts said that they believe Castro is playing his cards skillfully. He can export his dissidents and malcontents either through legal emigration or on rafts, they said. Although an orderly departure system would allow Castro to regain complete control of who is leaving, he need not rush to reach that point.

Administration officials said that the exchange of proposals Monday and Tuesday has rekindled hope that an agreement is possible. The ceiling now on legal immigration from Cuba is 27,845 a year, but only about 3,000 Cubans a year have been able to meet the stiff U.S. visa requirements.

From Castro’s standpoint, a legal migration agreement provides several important advantages. For instance, Cubans awaiting legal visas would have to be on their best behavior to avoid losing their chance to go. And if substantial numbers of dissidents were leaving legally, Cuban security police would no longer have to look the other way when rafters put to sea in violation of Cuban law, albeit a law that Castro has chosen not to enforce since early last month.

Nevertheless, an Administration official said that the Cubans seem to be enjoying the present round of talks in which Washington implicitly is forced to deal with Havana on the basis of equality, long an objective of Castro’s diplomacy.