Pope Francis Credited With Crucial Role as Diplomatic Broker (Cuba)
Source: New York Times
ROME — Pope Francis had quite a 78th birthday. The pontiff began Wednesday with prayers and a birthday celebration with tango dancers near St. Peter’s Square. His day ended with a historic diplomatic breakthrough between Cuba and the United States — and the disclosure that the Argentine pope played a key role as broker.
Francis is being credited for helping bridge the divide by first sending letters to President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba, and then having the Vatican host a diplomatic meeting between the two sides in October.
“The Holy Father wishes to express his warm congratulations for the historic decision,” Francis said in a statement released Wednesday night by the Vatican.
Vatican spokesmen declined to provide any details about Francis’s letters, other than that he encouraged the two sides to resolve “humanitarian questions”; resolve the release of political prisoners, including an American held by Cuba, Alan P. Gross; and “initiate a new phase in relations.”
Read more: http://nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/americas/breakthrough-on-cuba-highlights-popes-role-as-diplomatic-broker.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
The spirit is willing: Papal role in Cuba thaw started with John Paul II
by Tony Karon -
Dec
17
4:25 PM
Pope John Paul II traveled to
Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1998.
Jose Goitia / AP
U.S. officials have reportedly acknowledged that Pope Francis played a significant role in nudging President Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro toward the rapprochement signaled by Wednesday’s prisoner release and White House policy announcement.
But the Vatican’s role in promoting a U.S.-Cuba thaw is not a new innovation by a pontiff whose political inclinations are clearly more progressive than his predecessors — and closer to the more left-of-center consensus in his native continent of Latin America.
Obama’s announcement, after all, acknowledged that the U.S. had finally acknowledged the failure of an embargo long decried — and ignored — by the vast majority of the international community. At this year’s version of the annual U.N. General Assembly vote on the Cuba embargo, 188 of the 193 member states voted to strike it down; only the U.S. and Israel voted no.
“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Obama vowed Wednesday, promising “a new chapter among the nations of the Americas”.
More:
http://america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2014/12/17/pope-cuba-thaw.html
I really am beginning to like this pontiff...but I fear the RW aren't going to be happy with him!
