By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer

The State Department yesterday denied a senior Cuban lawmaker permission to travel from New York to Washington to meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon had traveled to New York to attend last week's U.N. Millennium Summit, and was planning to participate in the opening of the caucus's annual convention, which will begin Wednesday. He also was scheduled to speak at a forum sponsored by the Inter-American Dialogue today in Washington.

Under current U.S. policy, Cuban officials of cabinet rank and above cannot obtain U.S. visas unless they are attending meetings of international organizations. Cuban officials who visit the U.N. are usually not allowed to travel more than 25 miles from New York.

A State Department official confirmed that Alarcon had been denied permission to come to Washington and said the decision was in keeping with that long-standing policy.

"I'm very disappointed," Alarcon said in a telephone interview yesterday from New York. "We have had what could be described as a longstanding relationship with the Black Caucus. I think we have a common interest to maintain this dialogue."

Members of the Black Caucus, including chairman James Clyburn (D-S.C.), visited Cuba this summer and discussed embarking on a public health project in which Cuban doctors would come to underserved areas in the United States and African American medical students would study in Cuba.

Alarcon, who served as Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations, said he was planning to announce in Washington that his government had reserved 250 spaces for black students in Cuba's medical schools.

Clyburn said he was "not surprised at all" that Alarcon had been blocked from visiting but said he was pleased the Clinton administration was even willing to consider the request.

"Who knows, maybe next time we'll get it done," Clyburn said. "As the old saying goes, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' We'll try again."

But Inter-American Dialogue President Peter Hakim questioned why the United States would bar Alarcon from coming to Washington at the same time it was beginning to liberalize its policy toward Cuba.

"This is an opportunity for an informed Washington audience to hear from one of the most senior officials of the government and form their own opinion," Hakim said. "That's what America's about, isn't it?"

Alarcon said that while a bipartisan group of lawmakers had been pushing to expand trade with his country, those efforts had not made much of a difference in U.S. diplomatic policy.

"To me, it's not very easy to perceive any liberalization," he said. "I've been denied visas two times in two weeks."