All systems go for 902 talks

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio yesterday said the CNMI 902 team is all set to resume negotiations under the Section 702 of the Covenant with White House officials despite irreconcilable positions of the two governments on how talks should proceed.

The governor told an interview the seven-man panel, led by Lt. Gov. Jesus R. Sablan, are prepared to meet with Washington negotiators beginning Tuesday for a four-day bilateral talks aimed at resolving differences in implementing local immigration and minimum wage laws.

Amid Tenorio’s optimism, the two sides are still at loggerheads over the parameters of discussions that is threatening to put talks on a shaky start after two cancellations last year.

Yesterday the office of the lieutenant governor received another letter from President Clinton’s top aide, Edward B. Cohen, who insisted that negotiations focus on measures toward transition to federal immigration and minimum wage laws. The US leader previously wrote to Tenorio that any change would take into consideration the economic woes confronting the commonwealth.

Administration sources said Cohen’s latest letter once again reaffirmed Washington’s determination to put clip CNMI’s powers to control its immigration and set wages, the subject of an administration-sponsored legislation that has been marked up in the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last year.

“It was a tersely-worded letter,” said an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “Ed Cohen was upset because CNMI wants to pursue a different agenda.”

The local panel previously said it would seek more assistance from the federal government to help the commonwealth improve the administration of immigration and labor systems and additional economic aid, as well as discuss military land use and non-voting delegate status in Congress, among others.

According to Tenorio, he hopes that Cohen “will have an open mind and see the situation” in the Northern Marianas.

CNMI has been fighting attempts of the federal government to take control of the commonwealth’s function to implement its own labor and immigration systems, claiming that such move would adversely affect the island economy already hurting from the Asian economic turmoil.