Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 3, 1994 TAG: 9409070035
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: NEW YORK NOTE: LEDE LENGTH: Medium
Participants said they would resume the talks Sunday afternoon, allowing time to consult with their respective governments.
The Clinton administration, plainly eager to reach a settlement and end the Cuban refugee crisis, was exploring whether it could meet the demand for future talks without significantly altering U.S. policy, U.S. officials said.
One possibility being considered by the administration is setting up a list of criteria for Cuban President Fidel Castro to meet as a condition to future talks.
Under this strategy, if Castro were to meet the criteria, which might include key steps toward democratization and economic liberalization, the talks then would proceed.
Cuba's insistence on future talks, which had been anticipated and categorically rejected by administration officials earlier, threw a snag into immigration negotiations just as both sides neared agreement, officials said.
``If we were just focused on immigration issues, this could be wrapped up right away,'' said one administration official as the U.S. delegation plunged into another round of talks Friday night at Cuba's United Nations mission. By then, the two sides had met for 12 hours beginning Thursday.
``They clearly would like some commitment to further talks, and we're not prepared to do that,'' the official said. ``The question is how to accommodate [that] issue, which looms large for them. The Cuban Democracy Act just doesn't give us much wiggle room. So the problem is: How do we square that circle?''
Administration policy - enshrined in the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 - calls for the United States to carefully reduce sanctions ``in response to positive developments in Cuba'' toward achieving democracy and respect for human rights.
U.S. negotiators said Friday that their reading of the law might preclude them from even discussing an end to the 32-year-old trade embargo - Havana's chief political aim - without concrete progress first in Cuba.
The law does not mention dialogue with Cuba, leaving it unclear whether some discussion of the sanctions is permitted or whether the U.S. government must determine on its own when to reward the positive developments it calls for. Opening a political dialogue with Castro would have a domestic price. Some leading Cuban Americans were suspicious of the immigration talks precisely for this reason; they feared it might lead to a greater dialogue, and, eventually, political accommodation with Castro.
But a growing number of U.S. lawmakers, including influential Democrats in the foreign policy arena, have denounced the administration's no-talk policy as obsolete, particularly as the United States normalizes ties with such former enemies as Vietnam and North Korea.
Word that the administration was even considering a political dialogue with Castro underscored its fervent hope to strike a deal that would end an exodus that has landed more than 16,000 Cuban rafters at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.
Even after the administration warned last month that no Cuban rafters intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard would reach the United States, refugees continued to pour into the sea:
The Coast Guard reported that 972 Cuban refugees had been picked up by Friday evening, making a total of 2,893 in the first two days of September.
by CNB