Cuba no longer on terrorist list?
Obama, at meeting of Americas, says decision is nearer
President Obama to consider island nation’s status.
PANAMA CITY — President Barack Obama said Thursday that the State Department has finished a review of whether to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, potentially the first step in formally changing U.S. policy toward the island nation at a time of warming diplomatic relations.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with the Jamaican prime minister in Kingston, Jamaica, Obama said several federal agencies will look at the report before it is given to him.
Obama will review the secretary of state’s recommendation and solicit the views of his national security team, then decide whether to lift the designation, an aide said late Thursday. Obama has said he will act quickly. If he decides to take Cuba off the list, the aide said, the president will submit a report to Congress at least 45 days before the proposed change would take effect.
Obama did not say what the recommendation was, though he hinted that the countries were making progress toward warmer relations.
Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro made a historic announcement in December that they would end a half-century without diplomatic relations between their countries. The two sides have been working since then to try to re-establish ties, and at a summit in Panama this week, the leaders are likely to informally interact.
“We want to make sure that, given that this is a powerful tool to isolate those countries that genuinely do support terrorism, that when we make those designations we’ve got strong evidence that, in fact, that’s the case,” Obama told reporters. “And as circumstances change, then that list will change as well.”
Since 1982, Cuba has been on the list of countries determined by the State Department to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism. The designation carries sanctions including a ban on U.S. foreign assistance, a ban on defense exports and sales, controls on the exports of some goods and financial restrictions. Iran, Sudan and Syria are also on the list.
Cuba has said the terrorism designation is a major obstacle to reaching an agreement, and White House officials have not ruled out the possibility of changing it while the president is in Panama this week.
Aides to the president did not disclose what the State Department recommendation to Obama was, but one of them pointed out that North Korea, which President George W. Bush removed from the list in 2008, defies international attempts to contain its rogue nuclear program. By contrast, the aide noted, Cuba is talking with the U.S. about adopting reforms.
A decision to end the “sponsor of terrorism” designation would face bipartisan opposition in Congress, though lawmakers will have few effective tools to counter it, and Democratic congressional staffers question whether Republicans could come up with enough votes to reject the initiative.
In a statement Wednesday, Sen. Bob Menendez, until recently the top Democrat on the Foreign Rela- tions Committee, warned it would be “another significant misstep in a misguided policy.”
But Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., a leading critic of the U.S. policy of isolating Cuba, said it would add major momentum to the process of normalizing relations.
“They don’t belong on the terrorist list; they never did. But nonetheless, we politicize the terror list and put them on,” he said in an interview.
McGovern added he thought it unlikely Obama might finalize the decision while attending the Summit of the Americas here Friday after a potential informal meeting with Castro.
“But it would be nice if this occasion could be a time to announce something concrete,” he said.
In a town hall meeting with young leaders on Thursday in Jamaica, Obama said he expects to continue having differences with the Cuban government, but not in a way that keeps both sides “impris- oned by the past.”
“We are as committed as ever to supporting human rights and political freedom in Cuba and around the world,” he said. “But I believe that engagement is a more powerful force than isolation, and the changes we are making can help improve the lives of the Cuban people.”