NYC mayor meets with Cuban President Castro

“Our support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine will be front and center throughout our discussions”, said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.

Relations between the U.S. and Cuba began to deteriorate after the 1959 Cuban Revolution overthrew the Batista government. In August, Secretary of State John Kerry attended the re-opening ceremony of the USA embassy in Cuba. Kerry and Lavrov also talked about Ukraine. He met with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (KWOH’-moh) on Friday. He noted, however, that US policy has changed since the last time the world body assessed the embargo. Pope Francis, who has played a key role in the rapprochement between Havana and Washington, arrived in Havana a day later. That spared Obama from having to make good on his threatened veto.

The USA and the European Union have imposed targeted sanctions on Russian Federation for its take-over of Crimea and backing for rebel forces in eastern Ukraine. Republican lawmakers opposed the deal on grounds that it will not keep Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Obama says the goals of the 15-year plan are ambitious, but he says they can be achieved if governments work together. He travels to the US on Tuesday.

The US officials, however, said the administration believes an abstention could send a powerful signal to Congress and the world of Obama’s commitment to end the embargo. In the evening Sunday, the president was headlining a Democratic Party LGBT fundraiser.

They met in April on the sidelines of a Summit of Americas meeting in Panama.

Obama likely will use the speech to argue the merits of diplomacy and engagement.

Abstaining from the vote would mark one of the largest steps yet in the normalising of diplomatic relations between the USA and Cuba. Cuban history was also part of the discussion, he said. “If we want a habitable world, we need to adopt tangible commitments on the matter of development assistance”.

Also Tuesday, Obama will meet with the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev (nur-sul-TAHN’ nah-sar-BAH’-yev), according to the White House.