OAS chief doesn't expect Cuba to rejoin soon

OAS chief doesn't expect Cuba to rejoin soon
(AP) – 14 hours ago

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Cuba is not expected to seek to rejoin the
Organization of American States anytime soon despite the OAS vote to
lift a decades-old suspension, the multinational group's chief said Monday.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza told reporters it's likely
that "some years" and "a lot of changes in Cuba" will happen before the
Cuban government asks to return to the 34-nation organization.

"We hope they will do so, but we don't think that they will do so in the
near future," Insulza said in Barbados, where he was holding his first
official meeting with the country's new foreign minister.

The OAS voted in June to lift the suspension of Cuba's membership as
part of an effort at regional solidarity. Cuba quickly rejected the
offer to rejoin the OAS, which it has accused of supporting U.S.
hostility toward its communist government.

Insulza said the OAS did not expect Cuba to immediately embrace the
group but felt it was important to remove a prohibition on the island's
membership — a Cold War relic that he said had become "negative for the
organization."

"We succeeded in that; we eliminated that," he said of the lifting of
the suspension. "Now the next step belongs to Cuba. They have to ask to
return and we have to discuss that in council, with them."

Membership in the OAS gives a country a voice in hemispheric agreements
on major issues. The OAS has often tried to mediate solutions to
political conflicts and it has offshoots that coordinate health policies
and protect human rights.

The Associated Press: OAS chief doesn't expect Cuba to rejoin soon (1
September 2009)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gDDRb2-VAy8wbfm-3oz-jb2_zFHQD9AE8LK00