FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil (AFP) — US President Barack Obama's administration should work to bringing Cuba back into international bodies such as the IMF, a Brazilian official in the fund said Saturday.
Paulo Nogueira Batista, an executive director representing Brazil and a group of eight Latin American countries in the International Monetary Fund, stressed during a world tourism conference in Brazil his opinion was personal and not that of the fund.
"I think it is a big disappointment that the new American administration, that has come in committed change and to reviewing certain policies, has not really moved forward in terms of bringing Cuba back into the international community," he told the Global Travel and Tourism meeting in the city of Florianopolis.
The comment added to a chorus of officials and businessmen in Latin America calling for the United States to ease its isolation of Cuba which includes exclusion of regional bodies and a 47-year-old economic embargo on the island.
A Latin American summit in Brazil last December issued a joint appeal for the end of the embargo.
Cuban President Raul Castro in April also said he was willing to discuss "everything" including touchy human rights issues with Washington.
Despite that, and a US lifting of travel and money transfer restrictions on Americans with relatives in Cuba, there has been no breakthrough in icy ties between the Cold War enemies.
Obama has said US policy to Cuba will not be changed until the communist island shows progress on human rights.
A senior US State Department official, James Steinberg, told a gathering at the Organization of American States last Wednesday: "The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba and we have changed our policy in ways that we believe will advance liberty and create opportunity for the Cuban people."
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