After a 47-year suspension of relations, the new secretary-general of the Organization of American States wants to invite Cuba back into the fold. But Castro foes on the Hill are warning the group’s chief that such a move could cost him.

“As the chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign assistance, I would expect the U.S. Congress to ask, ‘Should we continue to pay 60 percent of the budget of an institution that just disregarded democratic principles as a fundamental part of its charter?’ ” said Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

Congress appropriated $55.8 million for the OAS in fiscal 2009, and President Obama wants roughly the same amount for the group in fiscal 2010.

The OAS, one of the oldest international bodies in the world, expelled Fidel Castro-led Cuba from its ranks in 1962 after passing a resolution that declared “Marxist-Leninism” incompatible with the group’s democratic principles.

Although the Castro brothers — Fidel and his brother Raul — remain in power in Havana and the OAS found “permanent and systematic violations of the fundamental rights of Cuban citizens” in its most recent annual report, OAS chief Jose Insulza says he wants to include Cuba for the sake of democratization.

“Engagement and dialogue are better to bring countries into democracy, not segregation or separation,” he said at the Council of the Americas summit in mid-May.

He had his own warning for U.S. lawmakers if, contrary to Latin American hopes, Obama does not change U.S. policy toward Cuba: Latin America “has already distanced itself from the U.S. and may distance even more if the promise of a new beginning isn’t fulfilled,” Insulza said.

The OAS chief says he wants to see the Cuba issue debated when the 34 member nations of the OAS convene for the organization’s 39th annual assembly June 2 in Honduras. He called the 1962 resolution “outdated” for its Cold War references and said Cuba has not even been mentioned at the last 11 assemblies.

Menendez thinks the OAS should keep it that way.

“What message are we sending to the rest of the hemisphere — that it’s OK to go backwards?” Menendez said.

But the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, doesn’t agree. Lugar recently asked Obama to support the OAS’s discussions on Cuban membership.

“While it is too early to allow Cuba back into the OAS outright ... a lifting of U.S. opposition to discussion in how the OAS should engage Cuba would signal a preference for consultation, partnership and pragmatism,” Lugar wrote in a March 30 letter to the president.

However the debate goes, it might be all be for naught: Fidel Castro says he’s not interested in joining the OAS.