FILE – In this July 1, 2015 file photo a man on a scooter drive past the Cuban Interests Section, which serves as the de facto diplomatic mission of Cuba to the U.S., in Washington. (Photo: AP/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
The U.S. formally restored diplomatic relations with communist Cuba Monday, as Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez visited the U.S. capital for the first time. After midnight, the countries’ diplomatic mission in Havana and Washington, D.C., respectively, became fully operation embassies, marking the end to a Cold War-era policy implemented by President Kennedy more than a half century ago. Rodríguez and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are set to hold talks and a joint press conference during the day.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (centre, right) and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno RodrÌguez (centre, left), flanked by their respective advisers, sit together in Panama City, Panama April 9, 2015 in this handout photo, as they hold a bilateral meeting – the first between officials at their level since 1958 – on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas. (Photo: REUTERS/U.S. State Department/Handout via Reuters)
Rodríguez said he would mark the occasion by raising the Cuban flag at the new embassy. During the night, Cuba’s flag joined the others on display at the U.S. State Department headquarters in Washington. The last time a Cuban foreign minister visited Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president and John Foster Dulles was secretary of state. Eisenhower severed relations in 1961, in the early years of Fidel Castro’s rule, prior to Kennedy putting the nail in Cuba’s economic coffin.
The U.S. Interests Section in Havana plans to announce its upgrade to embassy status in a written statement on Monday, but the Stars and Stripes will not fly at the mission until Kerry visits in August for a ceremonial flag-raising. Despite the policy change, restrictions on trade and travel remain in place and cannot be changed on the part of the U.S. without an act of Congress.
Cuban-American lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as American conservatives, oppose and criticized the normalization of relations.
“Their views on human rights are not legitimate, they’re immoral,” Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio, who is Cuban America, said of the Cuban government.
