By Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration plans to send a delegation to Havana this month to restart U.S.-Cuba talks on law-enforcement issues that were halted under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.
U.S. concerns about counterterrorism will be among the subjects addressed in the talks, a State Department spokesperson said. Trump placed Cuba on the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism shortly before his term ended, and the Biden administration has been reviewing this since taking office.
The meeting will be the first of its kind since the law-enforcement dialogue, which was started in 2015 under former President Barack Obama, was stopped in 2018 under Trump as he rolled back his predecessor’s historic detente with communist-led Cuba.
President Joe Biden has begun reversing some of Trump’s harsh policies but has maintained others, insisting the Cuban government must improve its human rights record.
“This type of dialogue enhances the national security of the United States through improved international law enforcement coordination, which enables the United States to better protect U.S. citizens and bring transnational criminals to justice,” the State Department spokesperson said in a statement.
But the official added that “this dialogue does not impact the administration’s continued focus on critical human rights issues in Cuba.”
The Cuban government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick, additional reporting by Dave Sherwood in HavanaEditing by Alistair Bell)
