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Washington
hopes Spain will help bring democracy to
Cuba: official
MADRID, 31 (AFP) - The United States hopes
that Spain will use its influence over Cuba
to help bring democracy to the communist
Caribbean island, a senior US official said
Thursday in a newspaper interview.
"Spain has enormous influence over
Cuba. I hope she will use this influence
to bring democracy," Dan Fried, assistant
secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs,
told the Spanish daily El Pais.
The interview was published a day ahead
of an official visit to Spain by US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, who has been
critical of Madrid's policy of constructive
engagement with Cuba, a former Spanish colony.
"Many in Spain look at Castro and
Cuba through the prism of ideological categories
which date back to the 1960s," said
Fried.
"I don't see Castro particularly like
a man of the left because I don't think
that the biggest tradition of the left is
dictatorship. I think he is simply a dictator,"
he added.
Rice, speaking to reporters traveling with
her to Germany on Tuesday, said that dealing
with Cuba's regime "at the expense
of contacts with the very nascent and fragile
democratic opposition that is beginning
to arise in Cuba" would not help the
cause of democracy.
Madrid and Havana agreed to hold political
consultations, including on the issue of
human rights, during a visit to Cuba last
month by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel
Angel Moratinos.
Moratinos avoided meeting with Cuban dissidents
during his visit, which was the first by
a European Union foreign minister since
the bloc imposed sanctions on the island
in 2003.
Washington has a policy of isolating Cuba
and its ailing President Fidel Castro. It
has enforced trade sanctions and a travel
ban against Havana for 45 years.
Spain's junior foreign minister Bernardino
Leon defended Madrid's policy. "No
Spanish government has paid as much attention
to Cuban dissidents as the current government,"
he said.
On Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Jose
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said he would discuss
the "very different approach"
regarding Cuba between Madrid and Washington
with Rice.
"And when we do the positions are
going to be much more understandable and
much closer," he added.
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