WASHINGTON — The US state department said on Friday it had offered to resume talks with Cuba about Cuban migration to the United States, a fresh sign of President Barack Obama’s effort to engage the communist state. The talks, last held in 2003 and suspended by Washington in 2004, cover a mid-1990s agreement that aimed to prevent an exodus of Cuban refugees to the United States such as the 1980 Mariel boatlift and another wave of boat people in 1994. ‘We have offered to resume the talks, said Heide Bronke, state department spokeswoman, adding that the offer was made at a meeting with Cuban diplomats in Washington at 4.30pm EDT (2030 GMT) on Friday. Ms Bronke said she did not know whether the Cuban government responded positively to the US overture. Predictably, the Obama administration’s latest gesture to Cuba drew mixed reviews from the Cuban American community, with some blasting it as a ‘unilateral concession to a dictatorial regime and others hailing it as step toward better relations. Mr Obama on April 13 decided to ease limits on family travel to Cuba and to allow US telecom companies to operate on the communist-run island, a […]