• Submitted by: lena campos
• Politics and Government
• 12 / 14 / 2013

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If not in the coming government, maybe the following one, the normalization of relations with Cuba should experiment a substantial decision of the United States, the island''s former diplomat Ramón Sanchez-Parodi said.

Interviewed by Granma newspaper, published today, Sanchez-Parodi, first head of the Havanaâ�Ös Interest Section in Washington (1977-1989), said about the two countries' rapprochement that "we are making few progresses" and "the political time is in favor to eliminate the blockade" imposed by the United States for more than 50 years.

However, he said President Barack Obama has never been, in any sense, in a way to seek a normalization of relations.

Sanchez Parodi said Obama will not accept (the normalization of relations), adding that it should happen in the coming presidential mandates, whether republicans or democrats.

In his opinion, Washington needs to change the State policy maintained towards Cuba.

"How the United States is going to resolve its policy towards Latin America without resolving its relations with Cuba? We have maintained relations with all Latin American and Caribbean nations, and we have even had diplomatic ties with the United States," he pointed out.

Sanchez-Parodi said those countries will not change their policy towards Cuba, and recalled that "they already said the Summit of the Americas, to be held in Panama in 2015, will not be held, if Cuba is not involved.

Regarding the lifting of the blockade, he said it is not a decree, but a process that will take many years.

But even when we say the blockade was eliminated, relations are regulated worldwide by a series of bilateral or multilateral agreements, and it would demand negotiations between Cuba and the United States, Sanchez-Parodi stressed.
 
Source: Prensa Latina