By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it had reached accord with Cuba on a faster system for Cubans to apply for non-immigrant visas for U.S. visits, overcoming an earlier hitch in negotiations.
``We have reached an agreement that we will start within 15 days,'' said a U.S. official, who asked not to be named. Cuban officials were not immediately available to comment.
The U.S. initially accused Havana of going back on a verbal agreement to begin the new system Monday, apparently heralding a fresh diplomatic dispute.
But Vicki Huddlestone, head of the U.S. mission, was told by the Cuban Foreign Ministry midday Tuesday that the new U.S.- proposed process could go ahead.
A small crowd of impatient visa seekers gathered early Tuesday behind the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. The visa seekers -- several of whom spent the night there -- clamoured for information about the new application system.
``We heard there were going to be changes ... There are people who have been here days, some of them from the provinces,'' said 80-year-old Alberto Romero Hernandez.
U.S. consular officers will now replace the previous, time- consuming process of letters sent and received by applicants through the mail with a much faster, more direct system in which applicants can submit their passports at the mission in a special ``drop box.''
U.S. officials, who stressed the change was in procedure and not in approval criteria, said the new system had been verbally agreed with the Cuban government in mid-January after lengthy talks.
It should have started Monday but Cuban officials last Friday told the U.S. mission not to go ahead. ``They said no, that they weren't ready for it, that they had concerns about crowd security. It was a big surprise,'' the U.S. official said.
The U.S. mission said the old system was slow and vulnerable to abuse. The new system should take only two days.
``This is not a political issue for us. This is an internal consular issue,'' the U.S. official said.
But immigration and visas matters can become highly political issues between Cuba and the United States, which do not maintain formal diplomatic relations.
Cuba has blamed U.S. immigration policy for the case of 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck boy Elian Gonzalez, who has been at the centre of a heavily politicized custody dispute since he was rescued Nov. 25 from the sea off Florida.
Elian's mother and 10 other illegal Cuban migrants drowned when their boat sank on the way to the United States.
Havana says Washington's immigration policy for Cubans encourages illegal migration attempts like the one in which Elian's mother died.
Elian's father in communist-ruled Cuba, backed by President Fidel Castro's government, wants him returned. The boy is staying with more distant relatives in Miami, who, supported by Cuban exiles, want to keep him there.
Under bilateral accords agreed in 1994 and 1995, Washington pledged to issue a minimum of 20,000 entry visas a year for Cubans to migrate permanently to the United States.
U.S. officials say this pledge is being honoured but more than half a million Cubans apply for the permanent migration slots each year, in addition to those seeking non-immigrant visas for visits only.
20:51 02-01-00
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