Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Cuban President Raul Castro. AP FILE PHOTOS
MÉRIDA, Mexico—Cuban President Raul Castro heads to Mexico Thursday for his first state visit here since taking office in 2006, cementing a diplomatic renewal following tensions between his brother Fidel and conservative governments.
Castro is due to arrive in the eastern city of Merida ahead of talks on Friday with President Enrique Pena Nieto, who sought to mend relations after taking office in December 2012.
“We are very happy that this is his first visit to our country (as president) amid these renewed, revitalized relations,” said Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu.
The two leaders are expected to discuss regional and bilateral issues, including a recent surge of Cuban migrants entering Mexico in their bid to reach the United States.
The visit comes after Castro restored diplomatic relations with the United States in a historic renewal of relations that has raised the prospect of investment opportunities in Cuba.
Recent tensions
It will be Castro’s first state visit to Mexico since he took over from his brother Fidel in 2006 after he fell ill. Raul went to the resort of Cancun in 2010 for a Latin American summit.
Fidel Castro’s last trip to Mexico was in 2002, when he attended a United Nations poverty conference in the northern city of Monterrey.
Tensions emerged after Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) won the presidency in 2000 following 71 years of uninterrupted rule by Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Under the PRI, Mexico and Cuba enjoyed special ties. The Castro brothers lived in exile in Mexico in the 1950s and sailed to Cuba from the eastern state of Veracruz to launch their guerrilla revolution.
Mexico was the only Latin American country to resist US pressure to break relations with communist Cuba during the Cold War.
But relations turned sour under Fox’s 2000-2006 presidency, which voted to condemn Cuba at the UN Human Rights Council.
When he visited Cuba in 2002, Fox met with dissidents at the Mexican embassy.
At the UN summit in Monterrey that year, Fox urged Fidel Castro to leave early to avoid an awkward encounter with then-US president George W. Bush. Castro released a recording of a phone conversation in which Fox tells him “eat and leave.”
In 2004, Fox recalled his ambassador to Havana and expelled Cuba’s envoy to Mexico City in a row over comments the Cuban government following its arrest and deportation of a Mexican businessman facing corruption charges.
Tensions eased a bit under Fox’s successor, Felipe Calderon, who met with Raul Castro in 2008, but relations were never as good as under the PRI.
Debt forgiven
Pena Nieto has taken steps to repair relations.
In 2013, his government forgave 70 percent of Cuba’s $487 million debt to Mexico and gave the island 10 years to repay the rest.
Pena Nieto visited Cuba in January 2014 for a summit of Latin American and Caribbean nations.
Mexico now has 50 investment projects in Mexico, with meat industry firm Richmeat becoming the first foreign company to be authorized to invest in the new industrial zone at the Mariel port.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if during the visit, 10 or 12 agreements will be reached,” Arlene Ramirez Uresti, a foreign policy expert at the Monterrey Technology Institute, told AFP.
“Mexico has a great opportunity to not only push these investment projects, but also bring much capital” to the island, she said.
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