Making good on his promise to look further into the possibilities, President Obama announced Wednesday that his administration will formally remove Cuba from the list of four state sponsors of terror.
The move came on the heels of his ‘historic’ meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro. It is the administration’s next step in the strategy to rebuild relations with the island nation which have been essentially non-existent for the last 50 years.
With Cuba’s removal, the list of state sponsors of terror is reduced to Iran, Syria and Sudan. According to State Department officials, Cuba’s presence on the list has severely hurt the nation’s ability to engage in financial relationships with international banking institutions out of fear that funds would fall into the wrong hands.
Cuba’s listing by the DOS specifically cited the harboring of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, as well as other militant organizations that sought refuge on the island amid attacks against the United States and its allies.
