BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil said yesterday that  the U.S. lifting of limits on family travel and remittances to  Cuba was a good first step but that it should not require  gestures from the Cuban government before dismantling trade  sanctions against the island.

President Barack Obama on Monday ended travel and money  transfer restrictions for Cuban Americans and allowed U.S.  telecommunications firms to offer cellphone roaming and  satellite radio and television to Cubans.

“It’s a small step in the right direction,” Foreign  Minister Celso Amorim told reporters on Tuesday.

“It’s important that it be a first step and that (the  United States) not wait for gestures from Cuba to be able to  continue,” Amorim said. At the Summit of the Americas starting on Friday, several  Latin American leaders will push for the return of Cuba to the  hemisphere’s forums such as the Organization of American  States, from which Havana was excluded in 1962 when it embraced  Soviet communism at the height of the Cold War. Amorim said Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a  moderate left-wing leader who often tries to mediate between  Latin America and the United States, would raise the Cuban  issue at the meeting, but without putting Obama in a corner.

“(Obama) needs to understand that the region wants the end  of the embargo,” said Amorim. “Now, there is no interest in  creating an (awkward) situation for President Obama,” he said.

The White House said it wanted to increase the flow of  information to Cuba. Obama has said he is open for dialogue  with Cuba’s leaders, but does not intend to lift the trade  embargo until the one-party state adopts democratic reforms.

The Obama administration also does not want the April 17-19  Summit of the Americas to be dominated by the Cuba issue.

OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza expressed caution this week,  saying Cuba needed to show clearly that it was committed to  democracy to be readmitted to the group. Cuba has been ruled by  Fidel Castro and his younger brother, Raul, since a 1959  revolution.