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A senior official from the State Department held a formal and separate meeting with Colonel Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as El Cangrejo or Raulito, the grandson of Raúl Castro, during the visit of a U.S. delegation to Havana on April 10.
The confirmation came through a spokesperson from the Department of State in a communication sent to the outlet Café Fuerte, in response to questions from journalist Wilfredo Cancio Isla.
"A senior official from the State Department also met separately with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro ('Raulito') while on the island," said the spokesperson, without identifying the official or providing additional details about that specific meeting.
The MINREX also confirmed the meeting on Monday and specified that deputy secretaries from the State Department participated on the U.S. side, while Cuba was represented at the level of Deputy Foreign Minister.
It is the first time that one of the parties officially recognizes Rodríguez Castro as a key player in the diplomatic contact between Washington and Havana, since rumors about the negotiation process began to circulate at the beginning of this year.
El Cangrejo had remained in the shadows until March 13, when he appeared sitting among the high-ranking officials of the regime during Miguel Díaz-Canel's press conference to announce the ongoing bilateral negotiations.
The day before, he had already appeared at the meeting between Díaz-Canel and senior officials of the Political Bureau, the State Council, and the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers to discuss the negotiations with the United States, despite not holding any official position that would justify his presence among the government elite.
Rodríguez Castro, 41 years old, is a lieutenant colonel in the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) and has been leading the General Directorate of Personal Security since 2016, responsible for protecting Raúl Castro. He is the son of Débora Castro Espín and the late general Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, former president of GAESA, the military conglomerate that, according to experts, controls 40% of the country's economy.
The spokesperson for the State Department specified to Café Fuerte that the visit was directly overseen by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and that it marked the first landing of a U.S. government aircraft on Cuban territory since 2016.
Among the topics addressed by the U.S. delegation were the demand for the release of political prisoners and greater freedoms for the Cuban people, a proposal to bring the Starlink satellite internet service to the island with free connectivity, and concerns about the presence of foreign intelligence groups and military forces less than 100 miles from U.S. territory.
The delegation also raised the need for economic and governance reforms, compensation for properties confiscated from American citizens and companies, and warned that the Cuban economy is in free fall, with a narrow window of opportunity to act before circumstances deteriorate irreversibly.
The Cuban official Alejandro García del Toro, Deputy General Director for the United States at MINREX, described the exchange as "respectful and professional" and denied that Washington has imposed conditions or deadlines, seemingly contradicting a report from that revealed the existence of a two-week ultimatum for Cuba to release high-profile political prisoners such as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo.
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