HAVANA, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Cuba said on Thursday it was in a "process of negotiation'' with the United States at the International Civil Aviation Organization over Washington's ban on Cuban airline flights over U.S. territory.
The Cuban news agency Prensa Latina quoted parliamentary president Ricardo Alarcon as saying that a process of negotiation over the issue, a long-standing bone of contention with Havana, was under way at the Montreal-based ICAO.
Alarcon said "proposals from both sides to overcome this irregularity are being examined,'' but he gave no details of the negotiation and did not say who was involved on the Cuban or U.S. side.
Alarcon said the process had begun following support for Cuba's position from the Latin American Civil Aviation Commission, and also a request by ICAO President Assad Kotaite for the matter to be examined.
Officials from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana were not immediately available to comment.
In Montreal, ICAO spokesman Denis Chagnon told Reuters that negotiations between Cuba and the United States have been under way since November 1996, with Kotaite acting as mediator.
"The two parties are in a negotiation process, with the president acting as mediator,'' Chagnon said.
A deadline of autumn 1997 had been set, but that meant talks easily could stretch to the end of the year, he said.
Alarcon and U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Jane Garvey met with Kotaite when they were in Montreal this week for an ICAO conference on air safety, Chagnon said.
"When they were here, I believe what happened is that the president talked to both parties,'' he said.
Chagnon added that there was no indication of a change in the status of talks or an impending agreement.
Cuba and the United States, political foes since the 1959 revolution that brought President Fidel Castro to power, have no diplomatic ties and Washington maintains a 35-year economic embargo on the communist-ruled island.
In recent years, migration issues are about the only area where Havana and Washington have held regular discussions and where they have also reached agreements. Both sides have an interest in halting illegal attempts by Cubans to cross the Strait of Florida to the United States.
Alarcon, a former foreign minister and Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, noted Cuba had long protested over Washington's ban on Cuban flights over U.S. territory that is part of the embargo. The ban handicaps Cuban companies by forcing them to make long detours when flying, say, to Canada.
Denouncing the ban to the ICAO last year, Cuba said state airline Cubana de Aviacion's 250 flights a year to Canada from Havana had to make a 200-mile (321.9-km) detour east of the normal flight corridor. This alone cost the firm some $34 million in the first six months of 1996, Alarcon said.
Cuba argues that in contrast to the U.S. ban, it allows some 350 flights a day to cross its territory, some 60 percent of which are by U.S. airlines.
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