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 The talks were the first since U.S. President Barack Obama and
Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Dec. 17 they would work to
restore diplomatic ties, which Washington severed in 1961 two years
after Raul's brother Fidel took power and began implementing
communist rule.
"As a central element of our policy, we pressed the Cuban government
for improved human rights conditions, including freedom of
expression and assembly," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta
Jacobson, the head of the delegation, said in a written statement.
Obama needs the Republican-controlled Congress to completely
normalize relations with Cuba, and Republicans such as Florida
Senator Marco Rubio have opposed engagement as long as Cuba
maintains a one-party state, represses dissidents and controls the
media.
The U.S. statement was issued near the end of two days of talks on a
host of issues including the restoration of diplomatic ties.
 Cuba, always sensitive to U.S. efforts to infringe on its
sovereignty or meddle in its internal affairs, took the word
"pressed" as less than diplomatic. The Spanish version of the U.S.
statement used language that could be interpreted as "pressured."
"I can confirm that the word 'pressure' was not used. I must say
it's not a word that is used in these types of conversations,"
Josefina Vidal, the head of the Cuban delegation, told reporters.
Turning the table on the Americans, Cuba earlier had expressed
concern over human rights in the United States, a reference to
recent police killings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri,
and New York City.
With each side working under instructions from their respective
presidents, both sides stressed that the conversations were
respectful and constructive.
Illustrating the benefits to the Cuban economy of improved
relations, Moody's credit rating agency said the easing of U.S.
restrictions was "credit positive" for Cuba.
Jacobson said re-establishing diplomatic ties was "not overly
cumbersome."
But Jacobson also cautioned that any major breakthrough would depend
on overcoming more than 50 years of mistrust between countries that
remained adversaries for decades after events such as the Bay of
Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis. Jacobson's visit marks
the first time in 38 years that a U.S. official of her rank has
visited Cuba.
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"We have ... to overcome more than 50 years of a relationship that
was not based on confidence or trust, so there are things we have to
discuss before we can establish that relationship and so there will
be future conversations," Jacobson said.
Vidal declined to say if Cuba trusted the United States more after
18 months of secret talks that led to this first encounter, in which
the two negotiating teams shared several meals in between hours of
closed-door meetings.
"I have confidence in a better future for our countries," Vidal
said.
"We are neighbors. We have profound differences ... but we have seen
in the world that countries with profound differences can coexist
peacefully and in a civilized way," she said.
Chief among the differences is the comprehensive U.S. trade embargo
against Cuba. Obama has loosened the embargo and asked Congress to
start lifting it.
Cuba also told the Americans it wants to be removed from the U.S.
list of state sponsors of terrorism.
In immigration talks on Wednesday, Cuba deplored the U.S. granting
safe haven to Cubans with special protections denied to other
nationalities, while the Americans vowed to stand by the so-called
Cuban Adjustment Act.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Daniel Trotta and Rosa Tania Valdés;
Editing by Peter Galloway, Alan Crosby, Andre Grenon and Lisa
Shumaker)
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