Talks between U.S. and Cuban officials on ending the exodus of Cuban refugees appear deadlocked after three days of meetings.
Negotiators adjourned without results after three hours of talks on Sunday. They planned to try again Monday afternoon at Cuba's U.N. mission."There are substantial gaps between us, and I would caution against any premature speculation that an agreement is going to be reached," U.S. spokesman David Johnson said Sunday.
Cuban diplomats refused to comment, but Johnson said Cuba gave U.S. negotiators a written response to an earlier U.S. offer.
"The differences are significant," Johnson said.
The United States has proposed expanding legal Cuban immigration, perhaps to about 20,000 people a year, in exchange for President Fidel Castro's promise to end the refugee exodus.
Only about 2,700 Cubans are expected to get U.S. immigration visas this year. That's less than a tenth of the more than 30,000 people who have left Cuba aboard rickety rafts and boats this year, most of them in the past month.
The Coast Guard picked up another 1,069 Cubans at sea on Sunday.
Cuba's chief delegate, Ricardo Alarcon, told the New York Times in an interview published Sunday that the U.S. proposal to admit the 20,000 was inadequate.
The Times, quoting Clinton administration officials, reported Monday that the United States rejected a Cuban proposal to grant entry to at least 100,000 Cubans in exchange for Cuba's clamping down on the illegal exodus.
Alarcon said he was not optimistic about solving the refugee crisis unless the United States agreed to talk about lifting its 32-year-old economic embargo against Cuba, a move the United States has rejected.
"To find a real solution you have to deal with the causes of the emigration and that remains the economic embargo," he told the Times.
The United States insists migration is a separate issue and refuses to discuss lifting the embargo before Castro implements democratic reforms.
Negotiators had previously met on Thursday and Friday.
U.S.-sponsored Radio Marti stepped up warnings to Cuba in shortwave broadcasts of the high risk of drowning in the Florida Straits, the 90-mile-wide passage between Cuba and the Florida coast.