US and Cuban officials will meet for migration talks in Havana on Friday, the second such meeting since US President Barack Obama took office last year, according to dpa. Craig Kelly, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, will lead the US delegation, the State Department said Wednesday. The migration talks between the US and Cuba had been held twice a year from 1994 until 2003, when former president George W Bush halted the practice. Obama restarted the talks in July. Kelly, who led the last round of migration talks between the two sides in New York, will be the highest-ranking Obama administration official yet to visit the Cuban capital Havana. "The discussions will focus on how best to promote safe, legal, and orderly migration between Cuba and the United States," the State Department said. Obama has relaxed some travel and financial restrictions against Cuba since entering office in January 2009. But the administration has not signalled intentions to end the trade embargo, which was first adopted against Fidel Castro's communist regime in 1962.
