The International Student Blog

In a moved welcomed by many in the international education field, the Obama Administration issued a press release on Friday easing the restrictions in place for those wanting to travel to Cuba for Academic reasons.

Highlights of the release include:

The President has directed that changes be made to regulations and policies governing:  (1) purposeful travel; (2) non-family remittances; and (3) U.S. airports supporting licensed charter flights to and from Cuba.

 

These measures will increase people-to-people contact; support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people; and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities.

Although the news was widely welcomed, it has met with strong criticism from the Cuban Foreign Ministry for not showing any real interest in improving relations between the two countries. In a statement e-mailed to foreign journalists, the Ministry says the easing of travel restrictions announced Friday by Washington only benefit “specific categories of Americans and does not restore the right to travel to Cuba for all American citizens, who continue to be the only ones in the whole world who cannot freely visit our country.”

Hopefully as time progresses, we will seen further easing of the travel restrictions to Cuba in the coming years.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 17th, 2011 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Study Abroad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.