Scheduled commercial flight service has been suspended for decades as a result of Cold War animosity, although charter flights connected the countries in the interim.
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Unnamed officials in Cuba and the USA said an announcement was imminent.
He says the US still has differences with Cuba, including on human rights, and will keep raising those issues.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla traveled to Washington in July to re-open Cuba’s USA embassy, and Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Cuba a month later to re-open the US embassy there for the first time since 1961. Travelers from Cuba must courageous long, chaotic lines to buy paper tickets.
U.S. President Barack Obama was welcomed to visit Cuba Wednesday evening, so long as he does not interfere in the internal affairs of the country.
The Obama administration has changed rules to make traveling to Cuba easier for Americans, but it’s far more complicated than booking a flight to most other places in the world. Travelers must present their visas, identification and payment information to charter agents who handle the flights, and all travelers must certify that their trip falls under one of 12 categories approved by the federal government. That may include the ability to book a trip through a Web portal and eliminate the long-standing practice of checking in four hours before each flight.
It is unclear when the flights would start because negotiations between the Cuban government and the USA airlines could take months.
State Department spokeswoman Kerry Humphrey said late Wednesday that the countries “are making progress but still negotiating”.
Some of Major League Baseball’s biggest Cuban-born stars put dozens of boys through batting, pitching and catching drills in a sunny Havana ballpark, part of a three-day mission meant to warm relations between the US league and this baseball-mad nation. Obama eased travel restrictions to the Caribbean island in September, but general tourism is banned by the USA trade embargo, which can only be lifted by Congress.
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Cuba and the US announced last week direct mail service would restart after a 52-year interruption.
