BRUSSELS, Jan 31 (AFP) - The European Union suspended diplomatic sanctions against Cuba Monday, easing a standoff triggered by a clampdown on dissidents by Havana in 2003 -- but it vowed to maintain pressure on Fidel Castro.
The suspension, to be reviewed before July, was decided after Castro's regime released a number of dissidents and signalled a re-opening of diplomatic contacts with EU embassies in Havana.
"All measures taken on June 5, 2003 have been temporarily suspended," said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, in reference to the date the sanctions were agreed.
The decision will notably allow the resumption of high-level visits, although such trips must be used to push for improvements in human rights and the rights of dissidents in Cuba.
The EU froze relations with Cuba following a crackdown that saw 75 dissidents jailed for terms of between six and 28 years. Three Cubans found guilty of hijacking a ferry were executed.
But the standoff has eased since the release of a number of the dissidents, in a move seen partly as a gesture to win over EU nations most opposed to lifting the sanctions.
In addition Cuba announced in January it was restoring diplomatic ties with all EU states represented in Havana, including the four most opposed to lifting the sanctions: the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia.
But the suspension of the sanctions is not a definitive end to the row.
Asselborn said the suspension will be reviewed under the Luxembourg EU presidency -- which ends on June 30 -- "in the light of developments and progress towards pluralism and respect of human rights in Cuba."
"We highlighted the need to support a process leading to democratic pluralism, respect of human rights and basic freedoms in Cuba," he added in a break from regular EU foreign ministers' talks in Brussels.
The EU "wishes to have a constructive dialogue with the Cuban authorities with a view to coming up with tangible results in economic and political matters, and in relation to human rights," he added.
In addition, the EU "reiterated its urgent request to Cuba unconditionally to release all political prisoners of the group of 75 and urged the Cuban authorities to release all other political prisoners still being detained."
Lobby group Human Rights Watch (HRW) insisted that the EU should make normalizing relations with Cuba dependent on Cuba's meaningful progress on human rights.
"Cuba's recent release of some of the dissidents is a welcome step, but it does not signal a meaningful change in the government's repressive policies," said HRW Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco in a statement.
"President Fidel Castro is using human beings as pawns in a political game aimed at improving relations with Europe," he added.
The EU move to thaw ties with the communist Caribbean island nation was criticized last week by anti-communist icon and former Czech president Vaclav Havel.
The EU "is dancing, today, to the music of Fidel," he wrote in the French daily Le Figaro last Friday, criticizing in particular suggestions that Cuban opposition leaders may have less access to European diplomats.
The EU, "one of the most powerful democratic institutions in the world, has no scruples in making a public promise to the Cuban dictatorship to re-instate a diplomatic apartheid," he wrote.
Cuban exiles based in Madrid condemned the decision to ease diplomatic sanctions.
"This decision is premature because Castro has done nothing serious that the European Union asked him to do," said Rigoberto Carceller, spokesman of a group called "Cuba Democracy Now," linking 28 exile organisations in Spain, Italy, the US, Costa Rica and in Cuba itself.
The change of line "disappoints us because we thought Europe was not ready to give in so easily," he said, noting that Castro had released only 14 out of the 75 jailed in the crackdown, and that there were still 300 political prisoners in Cuba.
Some 45,000 Cubans live in Spain. But not all are exiles, and the chief exile focus remains Miami, Florida, where approxaimately a million Cubans are domiciled.
In Havana, a prominent dissident warned that the EU ran the risk of "capitulation" by dropping its sanctions against Cuba while receiving nothing in return.
"It is plain to see that some EU countries favour taking unilateral steps with the totalitarian Cuban government while they have been offered nothing," said Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
01/31/2005 19:41 GMT - AFP