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 The highest-level U.S. delegation in 35 years will conclude
two-day talks in Havana on Thursday, with both sides cautioning an
immediate breakthrough was unlikely.
Senior U.S. officials say they hope Cuba will agree to reopen
embassies and appoint ambassadors in each other's capitals in coming
months.
The United States also wants travel curbs on its diplomats lifted
and unimpeded shipments to its mission in Havana.
During talks on Wednesday, the Americans vowed to continue granting
safe haven to Cubans with special protections denied to other
nationalities.
Cuba complained the U.S. law promotes dangerous illegal immigration
and protested against a separate U.S. program that encourages Cuban
doctors to defect, calling it a "reprehensible brain drain
practice."
 As her deputy sparred with the Cuban officials over immigration
policy, the lead U.S. negotiator in the diplomatic talks, Roberta
Jacobson, arrived in Havana aboard a commercial charter from Miami.
She became the first U.S. assistant secretary of state to travel to
the communist-led island in 38 years and the highest-ranking visitor
in 35 years.
Her Cuban counterpart will be Josefina Vidal, director of the
foreign ministry's U.S. affairs, who also participated in the
immigration talks.
The meetings are the first since U.S. President Barack Obama and
Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Dec. 17 they would work to
restore diplomatic ties snapped by Washington in 1961.
Despite resistance from some in Congress, Obama has set the United
States on a path toward removing economic sanctions and a
53-year-old trade embargo against Cuba.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday he looked
forward to formally opening a U.S. embassy in Cuba.
Kerry also said he was prepared, when the time was right, to meet
his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez, with whom he has only talked
by telephone.
"And when it is timely, when it is appropriate, I look forward to
traveling to Cuba in order to formally open an embassy and begin to
move forward," Kerry told reporters in Washington.
In his annual State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Obama urged
Congress to start work on ending the embargo but critics say Obama
first needs to win concessions on Cuban political prisoners and
democratic rights, the claims of U.S. citizens whose property was
nationalized after Cuba's 1959 revolution, and U.S. fugitives who
have received asylum in Cuba.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
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