US to Put Additional Pressure on Castro Regime

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States will apply additional pressure to the Castro regime in order to provide Cuba’s citizens with more rights and freedoms, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.

“What we hope will happen in part is to expose the Cuban people to more of the kind of liberty that we enjoy in this country that could further pressure the Castro regime to make some changes in the way that they treat their citizens,” Earnest told journalists on Monday during a press briefing.

Earnest went on to say that the United States will work with the international community in order to focus its attention on the Cuban regime’s treatment of its citizens.

“It is precisely because of the President’s [Barack Obama] commitment to universal human rights and applying pressure on the Cuban regime to respect and even protect those basic human rights that the President wants to change this policy,” the press secretary concluded.

US President Barack Obama announced in December 2014 that he intended to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba, ease travel and trade restrictions on the island country and reopen a US embassy in Havana.

The United States had imposed an embargo on Cuba in 1961 during the Cold War because of antagonism between Washington and the communist government in Havana.