America
Obama to Castro: It's time for new US approach toward Cuba
Panama City, April 12
US President Barack
Obama told Cuban President Raul Castro, during their historic meeting at
the 7th Summit of the Americas in Panama, that "it is time for us to
try something new" with regard to Cuba because the previous US policy
did not work.
The long-awaited meeting, the first between the two
countries' presidents in over half a century, was held in a small room
in Panama's Atlapa Convention Centre, where the 7th Summit of the
Americas is being held by the hemisphere's 35 countries and to which
Cuba was invited for the first time, Spanish news agency Efe reported.
Obama
and Castro were seated beside each other, very similar to the way a US
president receives a foreign president at the Oval Office in the White
House.
Obama himself called it "a historic meeting",
acknowledging at the same time that the two countries have a
"complicated history".
"We are now in a position to move on a path toward the future," the US president said.
According
to Obama, the majority of Americans and also of Cubans have responded
positively to the normalisation of diplomatic relations that he and
Castro announced last December.
"Over time, it is possible for us to turn the page and develop a new relationship between our two countries," Obama said.
Saturday's
meeting between Obama and Castro was preceded by a telephone
conversation last Wednesday and was focused on reviewing the process for
restoring bilateral diplomatic relations, with the consequent reopening
of embassies in Washington and Havana.
That reopening, for which
no date has yet been set, was also discussed in a three-hour meeting
Thursday in Havana between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Cuban
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, which until this Saturday was the
highest-level diplomatic contact between the US and Cuba since 1958.