Cuba, US Direct Mail Service Re-Establishment Being Discussed In Havana Talks

Representatives from the US and Cuban mail services met on Monday in Havana for their second round of talks on the possibility of re-establishing direct mail service between the two nations for the first time since 1963. Both the Cuban Foreign Ministry and the US State Department said in separate statements that they had agreed to continue talks in the near future, during which the question of Cuban postal planes dropping off mail on US soil - one of most sensitive in the talks - would be worked out.

Cuba said the conversations between the two parties were carried out "in a respectful manner" and that "working out the transportation of mail by regular direct routes in both directions" was what needed to be nailed down in order for talks to conclude. The US State Department called the conversations "fruitful", adding that a delegation led by Lea Emerson, executive director for international postal affairs at the US Postal Service, would be touring Cuban mail facilities on Tuesday. "The re-establishment of direct transportation of mail between the United States and Cuba is consistent with our goal of promoting the free flow of information to, from and within Cuba," the State Department said.

Talks over both direct mail service - as of now, mail sent from one country to another has to be rerouted through a third country before it gets there - and immigration between Cuba and the US got going under President Barack Obama in 2009 after a five-year hiatus due to the Bush administration's suspension of them. But they were soon suspended once again in December of that year after Alan Gross, a contractor with USAID, was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in jail for bringing in satellite phone and computer equipment which Gross says was meant to help Cuba's Jewish community have greater access to Internet. Negotiations over postal service did not reinitiate until June of this year, with talks over immigration also taking place in July.

The Associated Press notes that in the past, discussions over issues like mail or immigration between the two nations have often served as a pretext to talk about other broader themes, as they do not maintain formal diplomatic relations. 2009 saw a senior official at the US State Department hosted in Havana for nearly a week after mail talks had concluded. The official also met privately with Cuba's deputy foreign minister, in the highest-level contact between the two governments in decades.

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