The U.S. and Cuba plan to begin talks to normalize relations and open embassies in each other's countries, Obama administration officials confirmed Wednesday, the first step in a process that could break a 50-year stalemate between the nations.
The news comes after Cuba's release early Wednesday of American contractor Alan Gross, who was convicted of illegally bringing communications equipment to the island nation as a U.S. government contractor and was imprisoned there for five years.
The U.S. ended diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 -- two years after Fidel Castro seized power -- amid worries about communism encroaching on the West.
Now it will allow visits between government officials and encourage increased travel and commerce in an effort to promote openness in Cuba, administration officials said on a call with reporters.
Americans will also be able to use credit cards when they go to Cuba, and increased telecommunications will be authorized, they said.
Obama also asked for a State Department review of Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, though such an endeavor will take time.
The president authorized top-level talks with the Cuban government last spring, most of which were hosted by Canada, the officials said. Canada wasn't part of the talks, but the Vatican played a role: Pope Francis wrote to Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, calling on them to resolve Gross' case and encouraging the nations to pursue a closer relationship.
Obama and Raul Castro spoke Tuesday to finalize the deal, and Obama also relayed to Castro his intentions to continue to pursue improved human rights in Cuba, the officials said.
The deal calls for the United States to release three Cubans convicted of spying on anti-Castro groups in Florida, they said. Administration officials insist that it was not a prisoner exchange, but that Gross was released on humanitarian grounds.
Gross, 65, has been held by the island nation for five years and is in poor physical condition. He was convicted in 2011 of illegally bringing communications devices to the Jewish community in Cuba as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. He had been sentenced to a 15-year term.
His family in Maryland has described him as weak and barely able to walk, but he had refused medical care, food and visits from officials of U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba as a protest of his detention.
U.S. officials said the Obama administration now plans to open talks on a full range of issues that divide the governments, including the economic embargo that has been in place since the Kennedy administration.
Legally, Obama cannot lift the embargo. Only Congress can do that. But he can take numerous steps that, de facto, normalize diplomatic relations.
There had been growing expectation among experts on Cuba that Obama would make a major move on restoring relations with Havana at some point after the U.S. midterm elections in November and before next spring's pan-American summit. Cuba has been invited to the summit, at the insistence of a number of Latin American nations, and Obama would
Though the administration has latitude to alter the diplomatic and economic relationship between the two nations through use of its executive powers, anti-Castro activists, including the Florida delegation in Congress, are likely to resist such steps.
Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, immediately challenged the White House claim that the release was not a swap.
"This was not a 'humanitarian' act by the Castro regime. It was a swap of convicted spies for an innocent American," he said. "President Obama's actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government. There is no equivalence between an international aid worker and convicted spies who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against our nation."
The deal sets a dangerous precedent, Menendez warned.
However, experts say the political costs to Obama of pursuing better relations have decreased as the Cuban American immigrant community has become younger and less strident -- and as evidence mounts that the embargo is not achieving its stated goals of easing the Communist grip on the country.
"Opening the door with Cuba for trade, travel and the exchange of ideas will create a force for positive change in Cuba that more than 50 years of our current policy of exclusion could not achieve," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
"No senior administration official believes the embargo will foster democratic change," Gregory B. Craig, a former White House counsel, said in a recent conference on Cuba at Columbia University. "U.S. politicians can support change in Cuba policy without great political risk."
The three Cubans released from U.S. prisons as part of the swap were part of the "Cuban Five," a group of intelligence officers arrested by the FBI in Miami in 1998 and convicted three years later by a federal jury on charges of acting as illegal foreign agents and conspiring to obtain military secrets from U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Miami.
The other two were previously released after serving out their sentences and returned home. They have long been a cause celebre in Cuba, where they are hailed as heroes and "freedom fighters" unfairly imprisoned by the U.S.
Havana has not yet released a public statement on the arrangement, but Raul Castro is to speak at noon EST on U.S.-Cuban relations, a Cuban official said. Obama is to speak from Washington at the same time.
Hennessey and Richter reported from Washington and Wilkinson from Mexico City
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times8:10 a.m.: This article has been updated with additional details on the U.S.-Cuba talks.
7:26 a.m.: This article has been updated with an official confirming that the U.S. and Cuba are beginning talks to normalize relations.
7:14 a.m.: This article has been updated with a quote from Sen. Dick Durbin and additional details and background.
6:37 a.m.: This article has been updates with additional details and background.
This article was originally published at 6:27 a.m.
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