WASHINGTON // Cuba’s blue, red and white-starred flag was hoisted over Havana’s embassy in Washington on Monday for the first time in 54 years as the United States and Cuba formally restored relations.
The move signalled the start of a new era in US-Cuba relations, opening a new chapter of engagement between the former Cold War foes and ending decades of hostility.
Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez presided over the flag-raising ceremony hours after full diplomatic relations with the US were restored at the stroke of midnight, when an agreement to resume normal ties on July 20 took effect.
Earlier, without ceremony, the Cuban flag was hung in the lobby of the US state department alongside those of other countries with which the US has diplomatic ties.
US secretary of state John Kerry will be travelling to Havana on August 14 to preside over a flag-raising ceremony at the US embassy there.
Hundreds of people gathered on the street outside the embassy, cheering as the Cuban national anthem was played and three Cuban soldiers in dress uniforms stood at the base of the flagpole and raised the flag.
The US and Cuba severed diplomatic relations in 1961 and since the 1970s had been represented in each other’s capitals by limited service interests sections. Their conversion to embassies tolled a knell for policy approaches spawned and hardened over the five decades since President John F Kennedy first tangled with youthful revolutionary Fidel Castro over Soviet expansion in the Americas.
Mr Rodriguez was to meet with Mr Kerry late on Monday.
US and Cuban diplomats in Washington and Havana had also noted the upgrade in social media posts.
Shortly after midnight, the Cuban interests section in Washington switched its Twitter account to say “embassy”. In Havana, the US interests section uploaded a new profile pictures to its Facebook and Twitter accounts that said “US embassy Cuba”.
Conrad Tribble, the deputy chief of mission for the US in Havana, tweeted: “Just made first phone call to State Dept. Ops Center from United States Embassy Havana ever. It didn’t exist in Jan 1961.”
However, there remains a deep ideological gulf between the nations and many issues still to resolve.
Among them: thorny disputes such as over mutual claims for economic reparations, Havana’s insistence on the end of the 53-year-old trade embargo and US calls for Cuba to improve on human rights and democracy.
Some US lawmakers, including several prominent Republican presidential candidates, have vowed not to repeal the embargo and pledged to roll back Mr Obama’s moves on Cuba.
Still, Monday’s events cap a remarkable change of course in US policy toward the communist island under Mr Obama, who had sought rapprochement with Cuba since he first took office. * Associated Press, with additional reporting from Agence France-Presse