France Wants to be Engine of Cuba-US Dialogue

[magbana]

AFP: France wants to be 'engine' of Cuba-US dialogue

Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:56 pm (PST)
February 26, 2009 Thursday 4:03 AM GMT
AFP
France wants to be 'engine' of Cuba-US dialogue

DATELINE: HAVANA, Feb 25 2009

France wants to serve as the "engine" of a dialogue between Cuba and the United States, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's special envoy to Cuba said after a two-hour meeting with President Raul Castro.

"France and its president want to be one of the engines of the dialogue between Europe and Latin America," special envoy Jack Lang told reporters.

"France wants to facilitate a dialogue between Cuba and the United States... it wants to be an engine for that dialogue," he added.

At the start of a six-day visit here aimed at boosting French-Cuban ties, Lang said the election of US President Barack Obama "is an important political change" that could lead to a "climate of cooperation and no more confrontation" between the two neighbors.

The envoy said he hoped the Obama administration would lift the 47-year US embargo on the communist island, long called for by the UN General Assembly..

"How do you explain the fact that Cuba is on the US list of countries it considers sponsors of terrorism?" Lang asked rhetorically.

Sarkozy, he added, "wants to turn a new page with Cuba" and get closer to all the countries of Latin America.

The French leader is aware that "the international situation is changing both in Latin America, as well as the North (America) and in Europe."

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