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President Barack Obama has submitted a request to
Congress to "rescind Cuba's state sponsor of terror list designation,"
the White House National Security spokesperson announced in a tweet.
The State Department had recently made the same recommendation to Obama just prior to his trip to Panama for the Summit of the Americas, where he had an historic meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro.
In December, plans were announced to thaw diplomatic relations with Cuba and move towards opening an embassy in Havana. The announcement was lauded by many in the U.S. as long overdue, but many Republicans have expressed fierce opposition to a move they say is premature and will only further entrench, rather than help overcome, Cuba's long history of human rights abuses. Obama and Castro shook hands at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in December 2013, the last known public meeting of the two world leaders.
In an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published this weekend, Obama defended the thaw as a "test" of a theory that thawing relations could produce better results than the prevailing policy toward Cuba, one made possible by the U.S.' strength in the world.
"We are powerful enough to be able to test these propositions without putting ourselves at risk. And that's the thing ... people don't seem to understand," he said.
The State Department had recently made the same recommendation to Obama just prior to his trip to Panama for the Summit of the Americas, where he had an historic meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro.
In December, plans were announced to thaw diplomatic relations with Cuba and move towards opening an embassy in Havana. The announcement was lauded by many in the U.S. as long overdue, but many Republicans have expressed fierce opposition to a move they say is premature and will only further entrench, rather than help overcome, Cuba's long history of human rights abuses. Obama and Castro shook hands at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in December 2013, the last known public meeting of the two world leaders.
In an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published this weekend, Obama defended the thaw as a "test" of a theory that thawing relations could produce better results than the prevailing policy toward Cuba, one made possible by the U.S.' strength in the world.
"We are powerful enough to be able to test these propositions without putting ourselves at risk. And that's the thing ... people don't seem to understand," he said.
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