WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators will travel to Cuba on Friday to begin a dialogue with the island's Communist government in anticipation of an eventual democratic transition, aides said on Wednesday.
Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, both Democrats, will meet Cuban government officials and dissidents during their five-day visit.
``They want to begin a dialogue with the Cuban government and others in Cuban society on a range of political and economic and other issues of mutual interest, anticipating Cuba's eventual transition to democracy,'' a spokesman for Leahy told Reuters.
Leahy is a vigorous opponent of the 1996 Helms-Burton law that tightened the economic embargo imposed by Washington in 1962 against President Fidel Castro's revolutionary government.
The senators will visit hospitals and a vaccine research facility. Leahy two years ago launched an initiative to control the global spread of infectious diseases.
The Vermont senator is a strong defender of international human rights and author of a law that bans U.S. military aid to countries where abuses occur.
In Havana, he will discuss the Ottawa convention banning the use, export and production of anti-personnel land mines, Carle said.
Cuba and the United States are the only countries in the Western hemisphere that have not signed the convention.
The official visit by the senators comes amid new U.S. moves to build contacts with the Cuban people and bridge an ideological divide that dates back to the Cold War.
U.S. rock musicians will take part in an artistic exchange this weekend in Havana and on Sunday the Baltimore Orioles will play an exhibition game, the first time a Major League team has visited Cuba since shortly after the 1959 revolution.
19:19 03-24-99
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