MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cabañas becomes first Cuban ambassador in the US in over half a century

Cabañas was head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington starting in late 2012 and last July, he became the charge d'affaires at the embassy.

The former Chargé d'affaires at the Cuban Embassy in the United States, Jose Cabañas, on Thursday presented his diplomatic credentials as ambassador to U.S. President Barack Obama in a new step toward the normalization of bilateral relations.

 Obama received the credentials of Cabañas and Mexico's new ambassador to the United States, Miguel Basañez, along with those of 14 other chiefs of mission in Washington, according to a White House communiqué.

The new Cuban envoy was the head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington starting in late 2012 and on July 20, with the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two nations, he became the charge d'affaires at the embassy.

Cabañas thus becomes the first Cuban ambassador in Washington since Ernesto Dihigo Lopez de Trigo, who was withdrawn from the mission indefinitely for consultations in November 1959, less than two years before relations were ruptured in 1961.

“The accreditation of the Cuban ambassador to the United States is another step in the process toward the normalization of relations between the two countries,” the Cuban Embassy said in a communiqué.

During the event in the Oval Office, Obama and Cabañas “exchanged” a few words “about the state of bilateral relations,” according to the embassy.

The United States does not yet have an ambassador posted to Havana, where the former chief of the U.S. Interests Section, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, has been charge d'affaires since July 20.

Obama has not yet nominated an ambassador to Cuba, although it is rumored that he is evaluating several candidates for the post.

Several Republican lawmakers, given that their party controls both houses of the U.S. Congress, have promised to block the possible nomination of an ambassador to Cuba as a demonstration of their opposition to the policy of normalizing relations being pursued by Obama.

The U.S. president accepted the credentials of Basañez, who replaced Eduardo Medina Mora, after the latter resigned his post to become a Mexican Supreme Court Justice.

In addition, Obama received the new ambassadors from Belize, Jamaica, Antigua & Barbuda, Denmark, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Somalia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Tanzania, Romania, Finland, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.