US Recognizes Failure of Isolation Policy Toward Cuba

Baku. 17 December. REPORT.AZ/ The decades-long US policy to isolate Cuba has had little effect and will be reviewed, including by re-establishing diplomatic ties and removing the country from the list of states supporting terrorism, the White House said Wednesday.

“Though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, it has had little effect,” the White House said in a statement. “We cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. It does not serve America’s interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse.”

In order to improve ties, US President Barack Obama has instructed the Secretary of State to immediately initiate discussions with Cuba on the re-establishment of diplomatic relations severed in January 1961, informs Report citing Sputnik News.

“In the coming months, we will re-establish an embassy in Havana and carry out high-level exchanges and visits between our two governments as part of the normalization process," the statement reads.

As an initial step, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson will lead the US delegation to the next round of US-Cuba migration talks in January 2015, in Havana.

Obama also instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to immediately launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a state supporting terrorism, introduced in 1982.