US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shake hands as Castro’s grandson and bodyguard Raul Rodriguez Castro (2nd from left), Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez (center) and UN chief Ban Ki-moon (right) look on, moments before the op
PANAMA CITY (AFP) — US President Barack Obama and Cuba’s Raul Castro shook hands on Friday at the Summit of the Americas, a new milestone in efforts to shed decades of animosity between the two countries.
The two leaders — who briefly shook hands once before, at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in Johannesburg in 2013 — exchanged a few words as UN chief Ban Ki-moon and regional leaders looked on, before taking their seats at a Panama City convention center.
The sight of Obama and Castro in the same room instantly became a potent symbol of their bid to renew diplomatic ties that were severed in 1961.
It was the first time that a Cuban leader attended the summit in its 21-year history.
A US official characterized the Obama-Castro greeting as an “informal interaction,” adding that “there was not a substantive conversation between the two leaders.”
A widely anticipated broader conversation — the first between US and Cuban leaders since ties broke in 1961 — was expected yesterday.
“The presence here today of President Raul Castro of Cuba embodies a longing expressed by many in the region,” Ban said.
All the regional leaders then headed to a private dinner.
Senior Obama aide Ben Rhodes said the extent of Saturday’s Obama-Castro meeting had yet to be decided, adding they would “take stock” of the negotiations to reopen embassies and discuss lingering “differences.”
Rhodes said Obama and Castro had discussed the ongoing negotiations and the summit by telephone Wednesday — their second phone call since December, when they announced that the US and Cuba would move to normalize relations.
Underscoring his increasing engagement with Latin America, Obama will also likely meet Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who canceled a US trip in 2013 over revelations of US spying against her.
But in a move that could irritate Havana, Obama held a closed-door discussion before the summit with dissident lawyer Laritza Diversent and political activist Manuel Cuesta Moura, along with a dozen other activists from the Americas.
While declaring that the days of US meddling in the region were over, Obama promised civil society representatives that “the United States will stand up alongside you every step of the way.”