Cuba Calls Immigration Talks with U.S. 'Fruitful'

Associated Press: Senior U.S. and Cuban diplomats met Wednesday to discuss immigration issues in an encounter described by the Cuban side as fruitful and carried out in a spirit of mutual respect. The two sides discussed ways to combat people-smuggling across the treacherous Straits of Florida, according to a statement released by the Cuban government. "It was a fruitful exchange aimed at ... the establishment of more effective mechanisms of cooperation to combat illegal migrant smuggling," said Deputy Cuban/ Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodriguez, who led the Cuban delegation. The statement said both sides recognized that the number of Cubans attempting to get to the United States illegally, often in rickety rafts or inner tubes, had dropped significantly. There was no immediate comment from the American side, which was led by Roberta Jacobsen, the United States' principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. The gathering focused on a 17-year-old agreement under which the United States issues 20,000 visas to Cubans a year. But diplomats from both countries also use the twice-yearly meetings to detail a long-standing list of complaints. Chief among them, as far as Washington is concerned, is the detention of Alan Gross, an American subcontractor jailed by Cuba for more than a year without charge on suspicion of spying.\