February 11, 1996
Web posted at: 12:15 a.m. EST (0515 GMT)
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson, D-New Mexico, arrived in Miami Saturday afternoon with three prominent political prisoners whose release he secured from the Cuban government.
Richardson landed at the Miami airport aboard a U.S. Air Force jet along with the three freed prisoners, Carmen Julia Arias Iglesias, Luis Grave De Peralta Morrell, and Eduardo Ramon Prida Gorgoy.
They had been jailed in 1992 for sentences of "rebellion" ranging between nine and 13 years.
The group Human Rights Watch says that in 1995, Cuban authorities released at least two dozen political prisoners before the expiration of their sentences.
The United States welcomed Saturday's release of the prisoners and called on Havana to free all political detainees.
HELSINKI, Finland (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher has wrapped up his first meetings with his new Russian counterpart, Yevgeny Primakov, who assured him that Russia has no intention of returning to the hostilities of its Soviet past.
Primakov is a former Russian spy chief who was recently appointed foreign minister, replacing the pro-West Andrei Kozyrev a month ago.
Primakov is remembered in Washington as the Mideast specialist who tried to prevent the allied invasion of Iraq during the Cold War, then as a major client and debtor of Moscow in the later days of the Soviet Union.
The two men ran through the list of issues confronting the two countries, reached no agreements, then aired deep differences over Iran and the expansion of NATO.
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