U.S. changes stance on Cuba's inclusion in OAS

Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS.

Cuba's decades-old suspension from the Organization of American States appears to be coming to an end.

As more countries clamor to lift the communist country's 1962 suspension from the hemispheric group, the U.S. State Department threw a curve ball at the debate late yesterday by submitting a new proposal that would eventually allow Cuba back to the OAS -- as long as Havana abides by the organization's democratic principles.

Just how the suspension should be lifted will be taken up today at the group's permanent council meeting in Washington, where they will hammer out a final agenda for thegeneral assembly next week in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

The proposal from the United States calls for ''initiating a dialogue'' with Cuba about its eventual reintegration to the hemispheric body -- "consistent with principles and values of the OAS charter, the InterAmerican Democratic charter and other instruments.''

The OAS Permanent Council would start those talks, and report back in a year.

In the bid submitted Tuesday evening by Washington's deputy representative to the OAS, W. Lewis Amselem, Washington acknowledged that "some of the circumstances since Cuba's suspension from full participation in the OAS may have changed.''

(Via Miami Herald)

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