Roundup: Cuba negotiates with U.S. on resumption of diplomatic ties

Cuba began Monday its third round of negotiations to resume diplomatic relations with the United States while ratifying its support for Venezuela, which is under sanctions approved by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The attending delegations, as in previous two meetings, are led by Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. State Department, and Josefina Vidal, director of Cuba's Foreign Ministry for the United States.

"The delegations will exchange views on issues related to the process of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, in correspondence with the communication that both sides agreed to maintain after the conclusion of the second round of talks on February 27, 2015, in Washington," said a statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

However, these talks coincide with mounting tension between Washington and Caracas, the closest economic and political ally of socialist Cuba in the last two decades, putting the Caribbean island in an awkward situation.

On March 9, Obama's administration declared Venezuela an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the U.S. security.

A few hours after that, Cuba issued a statement ratifying its "unconditional support" to the "Bolivarian Revolution" and the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

"I hope the U.S. government understands that they can not manage Cuba with a carrot and Venezuela with a stick. The era of the carrot and the stick is over, it is time to understand that Latin America and the Caribbean cannot be treated as a U.S. backyard," said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez last Saturday in Caracas.

Obama intends to attend the Summit of the Americas in Panama in April to reestablish official relations with Cuba and open their respective embassies in Havana and Washington.

However, according to the Cuban foreign minister, with the sanctions against Venezuela, "the United States has caused serious damage to the hemispheric environment on the eve of the Summit of the Americas."

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department stressed that the confrontation with Venezuela will not affect the normalization of diplomatic ties with Cuba.

The governments of Argentina, Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Russia also expressed their rejection to the U.S. action against Caracas, as well as international organizations such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

Maduro has announced that on Tuesday, there will be in Caracas a meeting of ALBA leaders and representatives to define "a common position for the Summit of the Americas," in which Cuba would participate for the first time.

The Venezuelan president said he received a personal message from Cuban President Raul Castro ensuring him that they would agree in Caracas "all the elements of the current situation for a common unitary position".

For the last 15 years, Caracas has been Havana's main political and economic ally, supplying 50 percent of the fuel consumed on the island in exchange for professional services in the fields of health care and education.

The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 in retaliation against the nationalist measures adopted by the Cuban government led by then revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. Endi