Cuban President Raul Castro said Wednesday that any attempt to normalize relations with the U.S. would be pointless if the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay wasn’t returned to the communist regime.
While speaking at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Costa Rica, Mr. Castro also said that Cuba must be compensated for decades of financial hardship he blames on the U.S. trade embargo.
“If these problems aren’t resolved, this diplomatic rapprochement wouldn’t make any sense,” the Cuban president said, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
President Obama recently relaxed the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba and last week U.S. negotiators met in Havana to discuss ways of improving diplomatic relations.
“The reestablishment of diplomatic relations is the start of a process of normalizing bilateral relations, but this will not be possible while the blockade still exists, while they don’t give back the territory illegally occupied by the Guanatanamo naval base,” Mr. Castro added, AP reported.
The U.S. holds the base under the terms of a 1934 treaty with Cuba that grants the U.S. the right to lease the base in perpetuity, barring a mutual agreement to scrap the pact.
Cuba’s government has denounced the treaty since the earliest days of the communist revolution and refused to cash the lease-payment checks the U.S. government continues to send it to this day under the terms of the pact. According to a 2007 Fidel Castro interview, the checks — $4,085 per month — are kept in a desk in his office.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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