Kerry raises US flag over embassy in Cuba

But on Friday, the US hoisted the Stars and Stripes over its newly reopened American Embassy in Cuba, the culmination of a remarkable behind-the-scenes diplomatic manoeuvre designed to end more than half a century of hostility.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since the United States attempted to oust Fidel Castro, Cuba’s communist leader from 1959 to 2008.

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The last time the flag flew at that embassy was just a few days before Kennedy took office.

If he did have the ear of Secretary Kerry, this is what he’d have said: “The [Cuban] government is feeling more relaxed to repress us because they are completely focused on transferring power to their families and political allies”.

Bush and Rubio weren’t alone in their criticism on Friday. “When something isn’t working, we can and will change”. The administration says that opening up diplomatic relations will ultimately benefit the United States by allowing the government to partner with Cuba on areas of mutual interest, such as health, migration, and drug-trafficking policy. “The territory where torture occurs and people are held in legal limbo isn’t under Cuban jurisdiction”.

The sunlit ceremony at the embassy overlooking the Malecon, the broad esplanade along Havana’s seafront, was a major symbolic step on a path that opened last December when President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro announced they would seek to normalise ties.

“The current U.S. policy on Cuba will strengthen and legitimize the dictatorship and is undercutting Cuban democracies”, he said.

In addition to the Secretary of State, a delegation of congressional lawmakers, including Democratic Sens.

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro, writing in a newspaper column on Thursday, said the US owes the country “numerous millions of dollars” for damages caused by its decades-long embargo.

“We are not going to make a decision to try to please or respond to people who don’t want our well-being”, Vidal said in an interview. Tracy told the Jacksonville Daily News in North Carolina in January that the crowd outside the embassy was mainly waiting to get visas, and predicted that he and his fellow Marines who took the flag down would return to Cuba to raise one again.

Kerry will attend a reception at the chief of mission’s residence later Friday where he is expected to meet with Cuban activists.