HAVANA, March 25 (Reuters) - Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina, currently in Europe, is scheduled to have talks with Pope John Paul II in Rome on Friday, diplomatic sources in Havana said on Wednesday.
Robaina visited Russia this week after speaking at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva last Friday.
Washington requested the Vatican on Tuesday to intercede with Havana to help win the release of more Cuban political prisoners.
During a brief visit to Italy U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked her Vatican counterpart Cardinal Angelo Sodano and Vatican Foreign Minister Jean-Louis Tauran to raise the prisoners issue with Havana.
The diplomats said Robaina's talks at the Vatican were expected to focus on the aftermath of the pope's historic Jan. 21-25 visit to communist-ruled Cuba.
During that visit, the pope criticized aspects of the island's one-party political system, appealed for the release of political prisoners and also signaled to Washington that it should end its 36-year-old economic embargo against Cuba.
In response to the pope's clemency appeal, Cuba freed 299 prisoners in February, including political detainees.
Also citing the pontiff's visit to Cuba, President Bill Clinton announced Friday that some U.S. sanctions against Cuba, including a prohibition on direct charter flights from the U.S. to Havana, were being relaxed. But Clinton added that the overall U.S. economic embargo was being kept in place. REUTERS
17:29 03-25-98