Washington and Havana to consider new ways for cooperation

HAVANA, May 16 (acn) Following last week´s talks on ways to fight and prevent money laundry, Cuba and the United States hold on Monday the third session of their bilateral commission in an effort to keep expanding areas of cooperation down the road towards the normalization of bilateral relations.

Today´s session is being headed by the general director for the United States at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Josefina Vidal and the counselor for the US Secretary of State Kristie Kenney.
The two sides meet to pave the way for new mutually beneficial accords, technical meetings in areas of common interest, and other exchange on bilateral and multilateral issues.
The session is expected to reach accord on high-level visits to take place soon and to keep advancing towards a real normalization of relations, according to sources with the Foreign Ministry.
Since its first session, the bilateral commission, which was set up in August 2015, has favored cooperation in air security, the fight on narcotics and migration fraud, and new scenarios related to the protection of the environment, law enforcement and agriculture.
Since the reestablishment of diplomatic relations last July, Cuba and the U.S. have signed nine accords including the areas of environment, postal services, direct commercial flights, maritime navigation security, agriculture, trade and telecommunications.
Despite this advancement, the over-50-year US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba still is the main obstacle to bilateral relations, since the unilateral US policy hinders the development of the Cuban people and has direct impact on companies and citizens not only from the United States but also from around the world.