From the U.S. State Department: Postal talks with Cuba

capitolhillcubans

An interesting exchange during today's State Department Daily Press Briefing with Spokesperson Jen Psaki:

QUESTION: All right. And then if there’s nothing else on North Korea, I just want to nail down the postal talks with Cuba.

MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Do you expect anything out of this round or is this really not – is this just – in other words, if these two days of talks are a success, there won’t be direct mail service immediately, I presume, but maybe I’m wrong, so could you --

MS. PSAKI: That’s a good question on the timeline. Just to give you a little bit of history here, the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 states that, quote, “The United States Postal Service shall take such actions as are necessary to provide direct mail service to and from Cuba.” So this is – as you mentioned, on June 18th and 19th – well, you didn’t mention the dates, but so everybody knows, representatives from the Department of State and the United States Postal Service will meet with representatives from the Government of Cuba for a technical discussion on reestablishing direct transportation of mail. The reason we’re doing this is because it’s, of course, good for the Cuban people. This is something we feel is good for us. But it’s not meant to be a signal of anything or indicate a change in policy.

QUESTION: Are those talks here or in --

MS. PSAKI: In terms of the exact location, I’m not sure if they’re at the Department of State or if they’re just somewhere else in the --

QUESTION: Are those talks exclusively on the mail service?

MS. PSAKI: That is with the United States Postal Service. That’s their purview.

QUESTION: But I’m saying is it mainly about the – is there anything going to come up about Mr. Gross?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t want to predict. There are issues that are, of course, raised on both sides. As you know, this is an issue that has been raised at the highest levels from the United States, but given these are talks with the Postal Service, I would expect that will be the focus.

QUESTION: Just one more. I mean, is the U.S. Postal Service in any kind of position to make any kind of deals or agreements with Cuba? I mean, this is an organization that is essentially going broke, and I’m just curious. Is --

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think that’s combining two different things, in my opinion. This has been – we have had – I read off the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992.

QUESTION: Right.

MS. PSAKI: So they’re simply allowing mail to travel, which is – I would assume provides them with more revenue, with more stamps used.

QUESTION: Considering that – well, all right, exactly. So in other words, this could actually help the Postal Union’s budget if they are able to --

MS. PSAKI: I don’t want to go too far on it, but – I don’t want to go too far, Matt, but it’s more people using their services.

QUESTION: Jen, a clarification on that too. What is the genesis of this? I mean, how did these talks actually come about? Who asked for them?

MS. PSAKI: Well, this is something that the U.S. has felt would be a positive step for the Cuban people. We felt it was in our interests. In terms of who specifically asked for it, I don’t have that level of detail, but it’s just something that we felt it was – it would be positive moving forward.

QUESTION: But basically, the U.S. asked for it?

MS. PSAKI: I would have to check on that for you, but it’s something, again, that we are very supportive of and we are, of course, helping direct here.

QUESTION: Isn’t it a continuation of the talks from 2009 that were on the same subject?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I don’t know if I’d call it a continuation because it’s been a number of years, but yes, it’s on the same subject, and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to move things forward.