The US and Cuba restore diplomatic relations

LAST August 14th, US Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Havana – the first visit to Cuba of a US Secretary of state since 1945 – to preside over the raising of the American flag at the former US Embassy in Cuba, which was re-opened after 54 years, as the US and Cuba re-established diplomatic relations. “We are no longer enemies or rivals – but neighbors,” Kerry said. Last December, President Obama and Cuba’s President Raul Castro issued a joint statement announcing the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, stating that there would be a US Embassy in Havana and a Cuban Embassy in Washington. The last substantive talks between US and Cuban leaders was in Panama in 1956 when President Dwight Eisenhower met with Fulgencio Bautista, who was toppled by Fidel Castro three years later. For Fidel Castro’s younger brother, Raul, this marks another milestone in the political and economic reforms that he has been making in Cuba since taking over from his brother Fidel in 2006, when Fidel became seriously ill.

“The progress we made today is yet another demonstration that we don’t have to be imprisoned by the past,” President Obama said. “When something isn’t working, we can – and will – change.”

For many years, Cuba was aligned with Russia, and isolating Cuba was part of the foreign policy for ten American presidents. President Obama, however, declared that the policy of isolating Cuba had failed to improve the lives of Cubans. “It hasn’t worked for 50 years. It shuts America out of Cuba’s future and only makes life worse for the Cuban people.”

Cuban President Raul Castro welcomed the restoration of diplomatic ties between the two countries. “Cuba is encouraged by the reciprocal intention to develop respectful and cooperative relations between our two peoples and governments,” Castro wrote in a letter he sent to President Obama.

Obama said the present agreement would increase America’s contact with ordinary Cubans, permit a larger staff of American diplomats at the embassy in Havana, and grant them more freedom of movement across the island nation.

Officials say the full normalization of relations between the US and Cuba may take years. Meanwhile Cuba can expect to see a flood of fresh investments and tourists from the United States.

When he visited Pope Francis at the Vatican last May, Raul Castro praised the Pope for helping broker the diplomatic breakthrough between Cuba and the United States.