Cuba Sees Dollar Shop Restrictions Short-Lived

Cuba will try "as soon as possible" to rescind recent government measures restricting dollar sales in the Caribbean country while it studies the impact of a new U.S. policy restricting money sent to Havana, Cuba's U.N. ambassador said on Wednesday.

Cuba suspended the sale of all but food, personal hygiene and cleaning products in government shops that accept only dollars in response to what it called President Bush's "brutal and cruel" steps last week to reduce the money sent to Cuba by relatives in the United States.

"We will normalize the situation as soon as possible. [...] Maybe in a couple of weeks we will have a proper assessment," Ambassador Orlando Requeijo said at a news conference at Cuba's U.N. mission.

He later said that the measure could be rolled back even sooner, "in a matter of days", if the Cuban government deems it appropriate.

"We are trying to concentrate our resources and finances in order to provide the food and hygienic products that the Cuban people need. It is a temporary measure," Requeijo said at the conference.