Cuba cold war over after 50 years

While the official opening ceremony of the Cuban embassy was held today in Washington, the celebration in Havana is expected to take place on August 14, when Secretary Kerry will visit Cuba to raise the American flag over our embassy once more.

In Havana, meanwhile, a carnival atmosphere reigned around the new U.S. Embassy overlooking Havana’s Malecon seaside promenade. Senate Republicans didn’t have the votes in committee to add a similar prohibition to their version of the bill, but will try again when the State Department appropriation reaches the floor. Marco Rubio of Florida, vying for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination – have promised to block any nominee Obama proposes for ambassador to Cuba. But what about the national interest?

Press TV has conducted an interview with Gloria Estela La Riva, a Latin America expert from Washington, for her take on the restoration of ties between the United States and Cuba.

Kerry replied: “Absolutely, we both had a sense of history, and we shared it and we both understand this is an historic moment…I mean, it’s an extraordinary period of time…and I think we both understand the importance of it to our countries and to the region”.

The State Department formally upgraded its limited diplomatic mission on the historic Malecon waterfront in Havana into a full-fledged embassy, and Cuba did the same with a stately mansion it owns in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, a center of Washington’s Latino immigrant community. Kerry said later at a State Department news conference alongside Rodriguez.

Klobuchar is leading the bipartisan Freedom to Export to Cuba Act – which now has 20 senate cosponsors – to lift the current embargo. By midmorning, the Cuban government had pulled back several of the eight or so security guards who had stood watch.

Restoring ties “begins a new stage, long and complex, on the way to the normalization of relations, which will require the willingness to find solutions to problems that have accumulated over five decades”, Cuban President Raul Castro told lawmakers in Havana last week.

The cut in diplomatic ties started when U.S. President John F. Kennedy tangled with Fidel Castro the young revolutionary for the first time over the expansion of the Soviet Union in the Americas.

On Twitter the USA embassy in Cuba tweeted photos from the building’s inauguration in 1953. U.S. officials said that even as a cultural exchange, this will still be very limited.

“It is true there are profound differences… with regard to our views about the exercise of human rights by all citizens and in the whole planet… which will inevitably persist”, said Rodriguez.

Carnival Cruise Line received permission from the U.S. government to offer cruises to Cuba starting next Spring.

Monday’s events cap a remarkable change of course in American policy toward the communist island under U.S. President Barack Obama, who has progressively loosened restrictions on travel and remittances to the island.

“This is yet another demonstration that we don’t have to be imprisoned by the past”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement about Monday’s events.