By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 1, 2000; Page A28

The Cuban government has agreed to resume migration talks with the United States, ending a three-month impasse that threatened accords designed to prevent a mass exodus from the island.

No date for talks has been scheduled. But a 15-page Cuban diplomatic note, delivered Wednesday to the State Department, paves the way for new meetings over exit permits, migrant smuggling and other issues that have prompted bitter rhetoric between the two countries.

"The talks are important because they involve bilateral commitments that have been made," said a senior State Depatment official. "They've been spending a lot of energy attacking our policy, and we called them on it."

The United States and Cuba, which have not had diplomatic relations in four decades, signed agreements in 1994 and 1995 to control the flow of migrants across the Straits of Florida.

The accords granted 20,000 U.S. visas each year to Cubans and, for the first time, allowed the U.S. Coast Guard to send back illegal migrants intercepted at sea. It represented the most significant change to U.S.-Cuban immigration policy since the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives Cubans almost automatic residency status on arriving in the United States.

Cuban officials have branded the 1966 act "murderous," saying it entices Cubans to risk their lives to cross the Straits. The campaign gained momentum after the return to Cuba of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor whose mother died during an illegal attempted crossing to Miami last November.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright fired back this week by accusing Cuba of denying exit permits to people holding U.S. visas. Albright called on Cuba to resume semiannual talks on migration. The last meetings, scheduled for June, were postponed during the furor around the Gonzalez case.