The governments of the United States and Cuba held a technical meeting in Washington to talk about penal cooperation and agreed to hold more talks on the issue in the future, a Cuban Embassy press release reported last week.
“The meeting took place in a climate of respect and professionalism. Both delegations agreed on the meeting’s usefulness and agreed to continue with these talks in the future,” said the Cuban Embassy in Washington in its note.
In that release, Cuban diplomacy did not give details of the specific topics dealt with by the two governments on penal cooperation, an area where there is already a solid bilateral cooperation but there remain difficult matters to resolve, like the request for the extradition of fugitives from both countries.
The first official talks on justice and law enforcement between the United States and Cuba took place in November 2015, as part of the thawing process that began in 2014 under then President Barack Obama, a gesture that put an end to half a century of enmity and that culminated in the reestablishment of relations.
Last Friday, U.S. and Cuban representatives held their first working group meeting on cybersecurity and cybercrimes, one of the eight technical exchanges in the framework of the talks between the two countries for the legal strengthening, according to what a U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson said to EFE.
These meetings are being held in the context in which the government of Donald Trump has defined as a strong change in the Cuba policy after the thawing process promoted by former President Obama.
After six months in the White House, the multimillionaire issued a memorandum with which he put an end to said rapprochement through new restrictions against the Cuban military and again restricting Americans’ travel to Cuba.
EFE / OnCuba