Castro Cautiously Welcomes U.S. Moves to Ease Policy

HAVANA — Cuban President Fidel Castro gave a cautious welcome Friday to a move by President Clinton to ease U.S. policy toward the island.

“They [the measures] seem positive to us,” Castro told the CNN television network in Havana.

But the Cuban president added that he would need to see the full details of the U.S. announcement before making a fuller analysis.

In Washington, President Clinton said Friday that he sought to look “beyond Castro,” easing efforts to isolate Havana with initiatives aimed at allaying Cuban humanitarian needs and loosening citizen dependence on the Communist government.

Clinton said he would permit a resumption of direct humanitarian charter flights to the island, allow Cuban Americans to send $1,200 a year to relatives in Cuba, and expedite sales of medicine and medical supplies.

Officials said the measures would take effect in several weeks. One goal is to boost the role of Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church as a peaceful counterweight to the repressive Cuban state, they said.

The decision, triggered in part by Pope John Paul II’s recent visit to Cuba, left in place a nearly 4-decade-old U.S. economic embargo, and senior officials insisted that bedrock policy would not be altered.

But they indicated a willingness to also consider other unspecified steps that would further increase interaction between Americans and Cubans, although not their governments.

“The Cuban people are beginning to think beyond Castro. We need to do the same,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said.