WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama alone will decide whom to meet with when he lands in Cuba on a history-making trip later this month, the White House said Friday as it sought to dispel any notion that Cuban officials would have a hand in choreographing the president’s activities on the island.
“That’s a decision that we’ll make on our own, without any sort of negotiation with the Cubans,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.
Earnest was responding to news reports that Secretary of State John Kerry had canceled a solo trip to Cuba before the president’s March 21-22 visit, due to disagreements with Cuban officials over which dissidents will get an audience with Obama. Obama has set meeting with pro-democracy activists on the communist-run island nation as a condition for the trip.
Kerry considered making the trip, Earnest said, but it wasn’t scheduled. Kerry instead will accompany Obama to Cuba, making moot a separate trip by Kerry, Earnest said.
He was adamant that Obama intends to meet with some of Cuba’s political dissidents during the brief visit.