• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 01 / 06 / 2011

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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States and Cuba will hold new talks on migration issues next week, almost exactly 50 years to the day since the US severed diplomatic ties with the island, a US official said Thursday.

Officially this would be the fourth round of talks on the issue, with the last discussions having been held on June 18 in Washington.

The meetings are focused on implementation of the US-Cuba Migration Accords, and have been organized since President Barack Obama's administration decided to resume talks on the issue in 2009.

The United States and Cuba have not had formal diplomatic ties since January 1961, although Washington is represented by a US interest section in Havana.

During the latest round of meetings, the Obama administration raised the case of Alan Gross, a US citizen held in Cuba since December 2009, and has called for his immediate release.

"We made it clear to the Cuban authorities that is very difficult to move to greater engagement in the context where they continue to hold Alan Gross," said assistant secretary of state for Latin America affairs Arturo Valenzuela.

"The holding of an American citizen without charges for over a year, that is something that makes for us very difficult having a conversation," he added during a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington.

US officials say Gross worked for a non-government organization contracted by the State Department to supply computer and communications equipment to opposition groups on the island.

Cuba suspects Gross is a spy.

On Monday, Cuba marked 50 years since the United States snapped relations with the communist-run Caribbean island, following the revolution led by Fidel Castro.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110106/pl_afp/uscubadiplomacy_20110106191534