HAVANA, Cuba (CMC) – A Cuban delegation will attend, for the first time, the annual Caribbean regional security conference scheduled to be held in Jamaica.

The Cuban Government’s decision to accept an invitation to the conference follows other relatively small but symbolic forms of military engagement between countries that normalised relations in December 2015.

Commander of the US military’s Southern Command, Marine Corps Gen John F Kelly, said: “We’ve normalised now and, regardless of how we think of each other in terms of politics, we have very, very common challenges.”

Senior military and other security officials are expected from 16 Caribbean countries, as well as the US, Canada, France, the Netherlands and United Kingdom.

Cuba has not yet said who it will send to the conference which takes place over three days, starting January 27 in Kingston.

In the past, the conference has focused on cooperative efforts to combat drug trafficking as well as the smuggling of people and weapons.

The Administration of President Barack Obama has said it wants to close the Guantanamo detention centre, where it holds 103 men, but has said discussion of the future of the base, which occupies 45 square miles on the southeastern corner of the island, is not on the table.

Kelly said he believes the facility remains strategically valuable as a deep-water port in the Caribbean, and he would like to see it remain open, even if the detention centre closes.

He suggested it could be run jointly with the Cubans, offering employment to the local population as it once did. But the general says he hasn’t discussed it with anyone in the Castro Government.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate,” he said.