Closing Guantanamo Tops Havana’s To-Do List

The future of the newly restored US-Cuba relationship may hinge on Congress, as lawmakers have the power to either resolve or exacerbate one of the biggest surviving points of tension between the Obama administration and much of the rest of the Western Hemisphere: Guantanamo.

“This milestone does not signify an end to the differences that still separate our governments,” Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday afternoon in a joint press conference with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodriguez Parrilla that marked the restoration of their countries’ diplomatic ties after a 54-year rupture. “But it does reflect the reality that the Cold War ended long ago.”

Standing before a Cuban flag newly returned to official Washington, Rodriguez thanked the Obama administration but repeated the Cuban government’s list of unresolved grievances. “The lifting of the blockade, return of the illegally occupied territory of Guantanamo, full respect for Cuban sovereignty and compensation of our people … are crucial to being able to move forward,” he said.

But Kerry said later, “At this time there is no discussion and intention on our part at this moment to alter the existing lease treaty or other arrangements with respect to the naval station in Cuba.”

“We understand Cuba has strong feelings about it,” he said, continuing, “I can’t tell you what the future will bring.”

Cuban President Raul Castro has demanded the U.S. return Guantanamo Naval Station, a sparse strip of land that the U.S. has held since 1903. Since 2002, the base has also housed prisoners seized during American global counterterrorism operations. In January, a few weeks after Castro and President Obama announced that they’d work to restore ties, the Cuban leader argued that relations cannot be normalized until U.S. officials “give back the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base…If these problems aren’t resolved, this diplomatic rapprochement wouldn’t make any sense.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest responded at the time that Guantanamo was not on the table for negotiations. “The naval base is not something that we believe should be closed,” he said.

Since then, the administration has been careful to keep the dispute on the sidelines of reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba, which it has framed as a signal diplomatic achievement for the president.

Obama pledged as a presidential candidate to close Guantanamo, but has been unable to make good on his promise, thanks to legislative roadblocks put up by Congress, as well as competing priorities. Today, 116 detainees remain at Guantanamo, of whom 51 have been cleared for transfer.

(Related: Beyond Guantanamo)

The military officials who oversee the prison have said it is a political and policy issue rather than a national security one. Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo, told Defense One in May the facility could be closed “overnight.”

Beyond serving as the location for the prison, "The naval station plays a key role as a logistical hub in support of disaster relief, migrant, contingency and counter-illicit trafficking operations by various U.S. federal agencies, including DoD," Col. Lisa Garcia, spokeswoman for U.S. Southern Command, said Monday.

Even as Kerry and Rodriguez spoke Monday afternoon, lawmakers continued to hammer out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the annual defense authorization bill, or NDAA, which has been used as a vehicle for Guantanamo legislation. Provisions that could make it more difficult for Obama to transfer prisoners and close the facility are competing with a narrow opening from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. to grant the president the authority to close the prison – if he submits a plan to do so that Congress then approves. The Guantanamo language remains one of the major obstacles to the completion of the NDAA conference report.

Neither Obama nor Kerry attended the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana on Monday. Kerry will visit on Aug. 14 for a formal ceremony to raise the U.S. flag.

But the White House made clear the national security implications of the thaw by dispatching to the Havana opening Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobsen, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, and National Security Council Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere Mark Feierstein.

“This is yet another demonstration,” Earnest said, “that we don’t have to be imprisoned by the past.”