HAVANA — The United States and Cuba have agreed to hold immigration talks in Washington within days, a U.S. official said Saturday, the first since a similar meeting in Havana in February.
The talks scheduled for Friday are intended to monitor adherence to a 16-year-old agreement under which the United States issues 20,000 visas to Cubans a year, though in the past, the sides have used the meeting to delve into more contentious issues. In the last round of talks, U.S. diplomats pressed Cuba to release Alan Gross, a jailed American contractor accused of spying, who has been jailed for more than six months without charge.
After a brief period of hope that President Barack Obama would usher in a new era of rapprochement with America’s longtime Caribbean foe, relations between the United States and Cuba have been on a downward trajectory for some months. Cuba was angered when Washington included the island on a list of state sponsors of terrorism in December. The Associated Press
