July 28, 2015 Former U.S. diplomat to Cuba Wayne Smith, has said that more serious problems need to be resolved, after the normalization of diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba. He said this in an exclusive interview with CCTV in Washington D.C, after U.S. President Obama formally announced on July 1 that his country and Cuba have agreed to reopen embassies in each other’s capitals, following more than a half-century of hostilities between the two nations.
Mr Smith said
“Obama is heading it because it has encountered the point where our Cuba policy was an embarrassment,”
“The United State was isolated. We were the only country in the Hemisphere that didn’t have the normal diplomatic in trade relations with Cube. It was embarrassment. And every year, in the UN general assembly, the U.S. was sharply criticized for its embargo.”
Cuba has been shielded by urban development for more than 50 years, largely as a result of a trade embargo imposed by America. Smith says there’s more to be done.
“After opening the embassies, we are going to have a normal dialogue between one and another. But the embargo is still in place. And we won’t have normal relations so on it is. And Cuba is insisting that we lift embargo. So it’s difficult, will be a very difficult process to remove the embargo because we have to go through the congress,”
The U.S. government believes its new relationship with Cuba is a good sign and Smith agrees but is sure that there are more issues. In closing he said “So yes, we have diplomatic relations, we are going to have embassies, but there are serious problems still to be resolved,”.