Cuba?s flag goes up at embassy in the U.S

“We understand that Cuba has strong feelings about it and I can’t tell you what the future will bring but for the moment that is not part of the discussion on our side”, Kerry said.

“It’s good to warm the relations between both countries but a lot of things have to change over there about freedom”, Perez said. But a number of issues remain unresolved, so the road ahead is still long.

But Cuba has done little in terms of cleaning up their abysmal record on human rights in the seven months since President Obama announced the diplomatic breakthrough with Cuba back last December.

For the first time since severing ties in 1961, the USA and Cuba reopened embassies in each other’s capitals today.

But Rodriguez said only the lifting of the decades-old USA trade embargo, return of the U.S. Navy base on Guantanamo Bay and “respect for Cuba’s sovereignty will lend some meaning to the historic event that we are witnessing today”.

In Havana, meanwhile, a carnival atmosphere reigned around the new U.S. Embassy overlooking Havana’s Malecon seaside promenade. The USA stands to gain, and so does the average Cuban.

Outside the building, the activist group Code Pink held pink umbrellas that spelled out “Amigos”. One man was arrested after throwing a red paint bomb into a crowd.

A new CBS poll shows that 58% of Americans support resuming diplomatic ties with Cuba while only 24% oppose it. In addition, 54% of Americans support ending the trade embargo between the two countries. “I know no plans about President Castro to visit Washington”.

The Cuban flag is carried out of the Cuban Embassy by an honor guard during an official ceremony in Washington July 20, 2015.

“We’ve waited a long time for this day”, Senator Patrick Leahy, a staunch supporter of rapprochement, said as he entered the grounds of the Cuban Embassy. At about 4 am (0800 GMT), the Cuban banner first took its place in the columned marble entrance hall to the state department, hoisted between the flags of Croatia to the left and Cyprus to the right.

“We have to have relationships with countries to do business and American citizens get hurt when we don’t do that”, he said. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, a supporter. Bob Menendez, a Democratic opponent, said that “the real goal is a flag raising where the Cuban people are free, have their human rights respected and where we do not accept dictatorial conditions on our embassy and its people”.

The mansion was constructed in 1916 throughout the federal government of then Cuban President Mario Garcia Menocal (1913-21) to function the Legation of the Republic of Cuba, a kind of diplomatic mission headed by a decrease rating consultant than an envoy.

Undoubtedly Cuba will be an issue in next year’s Senate race in Florida.

Serious differences remain between the United States and Communist-ruled Cuba, and efforts toward full normalization of ties are expected to proceed slowly.

He will be the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Cuba since 1945, sealing what will be a major foreign policy legacy of President Barack Obama’s eight-year tenure.