US Department Of State.... Cuba Not Mentioned During Ten Bilateral Meetings With OAS Members

Remarks

John J. Sullivan
Deputy Secretary of State
Cancun, Mexico

June 20, 2017

excerpts.....

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Good afternoon. Welcome to this press conference of the Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan. He will start with a brief declaration and then he will answer some questions. I will assign the persons that will be allowed to ask the questions. Please use your mikes.

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Thank you. The first question will be for Tracy Wilkinson, the LA Times.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you very much. You spoke today passionately, I would say, about the need for this organization to be relevant, but you all were not able to agree – you all were not able to agree on a resolution for Venezuela. How do you explain that failure? And do you think that the recent reversal by the United States vis-a-vis Cuba has weakened your hand in a forum like this?

DEPUTY SECRETARY SULLIVAN: With respect to the U.S. change in – that the President announced in its – in our policy with respect to Cuba, I’m not sure that that had any effect on votes. It hasn’t been mentioned to me. I’ve had almost 10 – nine or 10 bilateral meetings today to discuss this resolution, and that was not raised by any country. I – so the thoughts I would leave you with are this is an ongoing process. We’ve got 20 votes. We’re hopeful to get more. But the process is continuing under the able leadership of our hosts, the Mexican Government. Thank you.