Rodriguez says the two top diplomats discussed improving U.S.-Cuban cooperation on environmental protection, law enforcement and other matters.
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Kerry will attend a reception at the chief of mission’s residence later Friday where he is expected to meet with Cuban activists.
“President (Barack) Obama and President (Raul) Castro made a courageous decision to stop being the prisoners of history and to focus on the opportunities of today and tomorrow”, he said. We saw the three Marines who were the same Americans who took down the flag in 1961 helping to put it back up again.
Washington “frequently flouts the rules”, warned Esteban Morales, founder and honorary director of the University of Havana’s Center for Hemispheric and U.S. Studies.
Like Obama, Kerry said a longtime U.S. strategy of trying to isolate Cuba and provoke regime change by choking off trade and fomenting grass-roots agitation had failed.
The Americans will press Cuba on human rights, the return of fugitives granted asylum and the claims of Americans whose property was nationalized after Fidel Castro came to power.
Leading a solemn ceremony outside the high-rise embassy on Havana’s waterfront, Kerry urged Cuba’s repressive government to allow greater human rights and political freedoms, sparking a sharp retort later from Cuba’s foreign minister. Rodriguez stressed there must be no U.S. interference in Cuba’s affairs. The second will tackle more complex topics like the establishment of direct airline flights and U.S. telecommunications deals with Cuba.
Leading a ceremony to mark the restoration of diplomatic relations between the Cold War adversaries, Kerry declared a new era in U.S.-Cuban relations but pressed the Communist government on democracy and human rights.
Other lawmakers have expressed support, including, Senator Patrick Leahy.
U.S. Marines raise the U.S. flag over the newly reopened embassy in Havana, Cuba.
While Cuba has increased its highly limited Internet access since December 17 in a measure U.S. officials partially attribute to the warming with Washington, ordinary Cubans are growing increasingly impatient for concrete results from the new relationship.
While the Cuban American population in Philadelphia is relatively small, there is one more flag ceremony that many would like to see, on the on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway where the Cuban flag is noticeably missing.
Several hundred people – Cubans and Americans – gathered at 7 in the morning at the Malecon ocean drive, some 50 meters away from the embassy, and witnessed the reopening ceremony.
Mr. Castro said the U.S owed Cuba money because of the trade embargo America imposed on the communist-run island in 1960.
“The big impact on the lives of Cubans is the embargo and to the extent that the United States and Cuba can now work towards ending that embargo ultimately will benefit them”.
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“But the lifting of the embargo will not be the magic wand”.
