Normalizing Relations with the U.S. will Take Time, Says Josefina Vidal

HAVANA, Cuba, May 20 (acn) Normalizing relations with the U.S. will take time, considered today in this capital Josefina Vidal, director general of the United States Department of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, who asserted that Cuba and the northern country are working to progress in this process.

The diplomat addressed participants in the International Colloquium Jose Marti: his vision of the United States of America, which wound up on Friday at the Center for Marti Studies (CEM), with the presence of researchers from Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and South Korea.
She specified that the dispute with the northern nation, difficult and complex, dates back from before January 1st, 1959, due to the purposes of Washington of trying to impose its plans on Cuba, a policy that in her opinion has not changed, but has a different strategy.
Vidal said that although the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the U.S. against the island remains in force, there have been positive steps such as the removal of Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism and the lifting of certain restrictions, and technical agreements that help establish contacts between the two parties and to know each other better and to identify interests on different issues have been signed.
We have started the road towards the normalization of relations and we should not build our hopes up; it will take time so one day relations of civility exist and bilateral ties improve and problems already identified by the governments of the two countries are solved.