(Havana) Cuban and US State Department officials met in Havana on Wednesday to discuss the expansion of consular and visa services on the island.
Posted at 8:33 p.m.
This meeting is the latest in a series of friendly exchanges between Cuba and the United States, which share a historically frosty relationship.
Cuba issued a brief statement confirming that the meeting took place.
The US delegation included Rena Bitter, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, and Ur Mendoza Jaddou, Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The US Embassy closed in 2017 following a series of incidents raising health concerns among its staff. Although a full reopening has yet to be announced, US officials have said visa processing will resume in January.
The new encounter comes as the United States welcomed its largest number of Cubans on a single flight in decades. Nearly 221,000 Cubans were affected by migration law enforcement at the Mexico-US border in 2022. This is a 471% increase from the year previous, according to US Customs and Border Protection data from US Customs and Border Protection.
A State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the Washington delegation also discussed human rights concerns in Cuba. According to this official, Rena Bitter “urged the Cuban government to unconditionally release all political prisoners”.