“My friends, it’s time to correct that mistake,” said President Manuel
Zelaya, host of the general assembly attended by U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and her counterparts from the 33 other OAS active members.

“If we were to leave this place without rescinding the decision of 1962, we
would … become complicit, colluding with that mindset of yesterday,” Zelaya told the OAS’s annual policy-setting gathering in San Pedro Sula.

He said Cuba’s suspension had “punished an entire people for having
proclaimed Socialist ideas and principles that today are practiced in all parts
of the world.”

His call came after the start of the OAS meeting where the United States
faces increased isolation in the body, even though President Barack Obama has broken with his predecessor George W. Bush to start improving ties with Cuba.

Clinton is sticking to her administration’s demands that the OAS abide by the
democratic principles enshrined in its own charter and force Cuba to free
political prisoners and improve basic rights before it returns to the fold.

In addition to Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua are setting no
conditions. They all call the exclusion of Cuba a “historic mistake.”

These and other OAS members argue that the reasons that led to Cuba’s
suspension – its membership in the Soviet bloc – no longer apply after the
disintegration of the Soviet Union.

A more flexible plan than that proposed by Washington has generated support from 26 of the 34 member states, such as more moderate leftist countries like Brazil and Chile, those close to the negotiations said on Monday.

There was no immediate U.S. reaction to Zelaya’s speech but Clinton appeared optimistic earlier Tuesday.

“I know we’ve had some discussions about this. I hope we will have more …
and I’m confident we can come up with a common way forward,” Clinton told
Caribbean diplomats at a pre-assembly breakfast meeting.

In his opening remarks, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza appealed
for the customary consensus in the organization.

“We want to make progress and leave behind a past that for many is not
positive, but not at the cost of falling into new divisions,” Insulza told the
assembly.

Clinton has sought to answer critics who say Washington is not moving fast
enough on Cuba by highlighting the changes that have already occurred.

The United States, under President Barack Obama, “is taking a completely new approach toward our policy toward Cuba,” Clinton told the Caribbean diplomats earlier.

Since taking office in January, the Obama administration has called past U.S.
policy a failure and moved to ease ties with Cuban President Raul Castro, who officially took over the reins from older brother Fidel last year.

The United States has lifted curbs on travel, as well as money transfers, by
Cuban-Americans with relatives in Cuba. The United States still effectively
bans travel to neighboring Cuba by the majority of Americans, however.

It has also announced in the last few days that Cuba had agreed to resume
long-stalled talks on Cuban immigration to the United States as well as to
begin discussions on direct mail links.

Even though Cuba itself rejects the OAS, analysts said, many countries want
to use the debate to push for a lifting of the decades-old U.S. embargo on
Havana, while others want to embarrass the United States.

They added that the debate has grown in force as Obama has raised hopes among many of hi  southern neighbors that he will soon support and push for an end to the 47-year-old US embargo on Cuba.

The OAS is also focusing on crime, drug trafficking, climate change and the
effects of the global economic crisis.

Speaking to Canal+ television in Washington before setting off on a tour of the Middle East and Europe, Obama said he would use a planned speech in Cairo to set out a new framework for American relations in the region.

“I think what we need is to create a better dialogue,” he said, in order for the Muslim world better understands how the U.S. and the West in general think about terrorism, democracy and other challenging issues.

While admitting that “expectations need to be somehow modest,” Obama said he will work with allies on the crisis in Afghanistan, the standoff with Iran and “the prospects of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

“The flip side of this is the U.S. and the West; we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam,” he argued, according to a transcript of the interview provided by Canal+ and its sister news channel I-Tele.
“And one of the points I want to make is – if you take the number of Muslim Americans – we would be one of the largest Muslim countries of the world. There has got to be a better dialogue and understanding.”

Estimates of the number of Muslims in the United States, where there is no question about religion on census forms, vary widely. A 2007 study by the respected Pew Research Center estimated that Muslims make up 0.6% of the U.S. adult population, or approximately 1.4 million Muslims 18 years old or older.