• Submitted by: manso
• International
• 02 / 24 / 2011

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Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla met Wednesday in Brussels with Catherine Ashton, Vice President of the European Commission, to discuss relations between Cuba and the European Union.

At issue was the EU's "common position" toward Cuba, which conditions trade and other relations to the Cuban government's observance of human rights and democracy.

A Cuban Foreign Ministry statement said the meeting "was respectful and useful and the parties agreed to continue it. During the meeting, Cuba expressed its willingness to advance to the establishment of a mutually acceptable framework of bilateral relations."

According to the statement, Rodríguez "reiterated that the normalization of relations between the parties will depend on the elimination by the European Union of the existing obstacles and the verification by deeds of its willingness to advance toward that objective upon reciprocal bases of an unconditional and nondiscriminatory nature, full respect for the sovereign equality of the states and for the legal framework and institutional order of the parties, and total adherence to the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of the states."

Source: ://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2011/02/