The meeting reviews the issues agreed on September 11 in Havana, where the mechanism founded after the restoration of diplomatic ties between the two countries met for the first time.
According to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the exchange, the parties will also discuss the results achieved in recent months, and analyze pending complex issues in the bilateral scenario, such as the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington to the island for more than 50 years.
As of the approach announced by Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro, on December 17, 2014, the two countries resumed diplomatic ties in July, reopened their embassies, and held talks in areas of common interest.
However, the blockade still remains, despite the global rejection it has generated, and the recognition by Obama of the need to end it, which in legal terms requires of an act by the Congress, after becoming Law in 1996 with the implementation of the Helms-Burton Act.
As well as in the initial meeting of the Commission, held in Havana, the delegation of the Caribbean nation is led by Josefina Vidal, general director of the United States Division at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while the US side is headed by Edward Alex Lee, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
sus/iff/lam/wmr
PL-17/MNA