Cuba off state-sponsored-terrorism list

The New York Times has an article by Julie Hirschfeld Davis about Cuba:

The Obama administration recently removed Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a crucial step in President Obama’s push to normalize ties between Washington and Havana.
Secretary of State John Kerry rescinded Cuba’s designation at the end of the congressional notification period, which began on 14 April 2015, when Obama announced his intention to remove Cuba from the list.
“While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a state sponsor of terrorism designation,” Jeff Rathke, the State Department spokesman, said in a statement.
The action came amid signs of difficulty in the negotiations between American and Cuban officials to carry out the historic reopening that Obama announced in December of 2014. Despite widespread optimism, officials failed in talks last week to reach an accord on re-establishing diplomatic relations and opening embassies.
Cuba’s removal from the terrorism list was harshly criticized by several declared or prospective Republican presidential candidates and members of Congress, a sign that the détente may become an issue in the 2016 campaign.
Former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, who is widely expected to run, called the decision “further evidence that President Obama seems more interested in capitulating to our adversaries than in confronting them.”
The House speaker, John A. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, said the administration had “handed the Castro regime a significant political win in return for nothing”. He vowed that the House would ensure that sanctions on Cuba would stay in place.
But the ease with which the administration removed Cuba from the list— a step that Cuban-American lawmakers had promised to try to block through congressional action, but ultimately did nothing to stop— reflected the degree to which Obama’s new policy has shifted the debate over Cuba.
Critics of lifting longstanding travel, trade, and financial restrictions on Cuba are increasingly finding their efforts overtaken by events. Although Obama would need Congress to lift the trade embargo and tourism ban, his move last year to relax some travel strictures and trade regulations has paved the way for direct flights and ferry rides, as well as business ventures between the United States and Cuba.
“When people get more freedom, they want even more of it,” said Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, who has pressed for the lifting of remaining sanctions. “Time has gotten away from those who favor the old policy. It’s so yesterday.”
Cuba’s removal from the list— which now includes only Iran, the Sudan, and Syria— is an important step in Obama’s effort to move past the Cold War-era hostility that has characterized the relationship. Obama met with President Raúl Castro of Cuba last month in Panama at the Summit of the Americas (photo), in the first such encounter in a half-century.
The reaction from Cuba was muted. The state news media took note of the move in brief articles, but without comment from government leaders. Cubans, however, had viewed the nation’s terrorism designation, in effect since 1982, when the government was sponsoring leftist insurgences, as a blemish on its image and a hindrance to its access to American banks.
Even with the terrorism issue now resolved, American and Cuban officials face challenges in pressing forward on the rapprochement. The talks last week, the fourth round since the normalization process was announced, broke off without resolution of issues holding up the conversion of the diplomatic outposts known as interests sections into full-fledged embassies.
United States negotiators want assurances from the Cubans that American diplomats at an embassy in Havana would be able to move freely around the country and speak with anyone, including opponents of the government. Cuban officials, who have frequently accused the United States of working to undermine the government by aiding dissidents, have resisted the request. American officials have also sought guarantees that Cubans visiting an American embassy in Havana would not be harassed by the police.

Rico says the Cubans are too suspicious to agree to all that...