Cubans to open talks about US fugitives including Assata Shakur as ties warm

The US and Cuba will open talks about two of the United States’ most-wanted fugitives as part of a new dialogue about law-enforcement cooperation made possible by President Barack Obama’s decision to remove Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terror, the State Department has announced.

Jeff Rathke, a State Department spokesman, said Cuba had agreed to talks about fugitives including Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, who was granted asylum by Fidel Castro after she escaped from a US prison where she was serving a sentence for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. The US and Cuba will also discuss the case of William Morales, a Puerto Rican nationalist wanted in connection with bombings in New York in the 1970s.

“We see the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and the reopening of an embassy in Havana as the means by which we’ll be able, more effectively, to press the Cuban government on law enforcement issues such as fugitives. And Cuba has agreed to enter into a law-enforcement dialogue with the United States that will work to resolve these cases,” Rathke said. The dialogue is also expected to address cooperation on more routine crimes, officials said.

A Cuban government spokesman did not return calls seeking comment on Wednesday, but Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat for US affairs, recently ruled out any return of political refugees.

On Tuesday night she said that “the Cuban government recognizes the president of the United States’ just decision to take Cuba off a list in which it should never have been included.”

Cuban and US foreign policy experts said the two governments appeared to have taken a major leap toward the reopening of embassies in Havana and Washington after four months of complex and occasionally frustrating negotiations.

“This is important because it speaks to Obama’s desire to keep moving forward,” said Esteban Morales, a politics professor at Havana University. “Now there are no political obstacles. What remains are organisational and technical problems, which can be resolved.”

In a message to Congress, Obama said Tuesday that Cuba’s government “has not provided any support for international terrorism” over the last six months and has given “assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future”.

Cuba will be officially removed from the terrorism list 45 days after the president’s message was sent to Congress. Members of Congress could vote to block the move during that window, though Obama would be nearly certain to veto such a measure.

Rathke said Cuba had also provided assurances that Basque nationalists living in Cuba would never be allowed out to carry out future attacks against Spain.

What remains to be seen is whether Cuba will allow US diplomats to move around Cuba and maintain contacts with citizens including dissidents, the second point of contention in the negotiations on restoring full diplomatic relations.

Cuba is highly sensitive to any indication the US is supporting domestic dissent and that issue could prove considerably tougher than amending the terrorism list. The Obama administration made little pretence in recent years that it believed Cuba was supporting terrorism.

Cuba was put on the list in 1982 because of what the US said were its efforts “to promote armed revolution by organisations that used terrorism”. That included support for leftist guerrilla groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Basque separatist movement Eta in Spain.

Cuba renounced direct support for militant groups years ago and is sponsoring peace talks between the Farc and Colombia’s government. Spain no longer appears to be actively seeking the return of inactive Eta members who may be in Cuba.

For Cubans, the terrorism list was a particularly charged issue because of the US history of supporting exile groups responsible for attacks on the island, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger flight from Barbados that killed 73 passengers.

The attack was linked to Cuban exiles with ties to US-backed anti-Castro groups, and both men accused of masterminding the crime took shelter in Florida, where one, Luis Posada Carriles, still lives.

“It’s really good that they finally took us off the list even though the reality is that we never should have been there,” said Rigoberto Morejon, a member of the Cuban national fencing team who lost three training partners in the bombing. He added that he hoped the two countries could “keep advancing in the re-establishment of relations”.