U.S., Cuba foreign ministers to meet in Washington on Monday

“We are talking about forging a new kind of relationship between both states, different from our entire common history”, Castro, 84, told the Cuban National Assembly, according to official media.

There, Obama stated: “On Cuba, we are not in the business of regime change”.

In a further sign of the radical shift in relations between Cuba and the democratic states of the West, Steinmeier will make the first visit of a German foreign minister to Cuba when his plane arrives in Havana on Thursday morning.

“You have to appreciate the words of the president… but you also have to see what happens in practice”, Gustavo Machin, the deputy director for USA affairs in the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said during a news conference.

The State Department meeting coincides with Havana’s opening of its embassy in Washington – a significant milestone in the re-establishment of full diplomatic ties between the Cold War rivals.

The diplomatic official cited multimillion-dollar annual budgets for what are commonly called the Cuban democracy programs, which Cuba believes are Washington’s hostile efforts to undermine its government and socialist political system.

Steinmeier also met with his Cuban counterpart, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, Culture Minister Julian Gonzalez and Cuba’s Catholic prelate, Cardinal Jaime Ortega.

Normal diplomatic relations between the two countries will be re-established on July 20 with the upgrading of the Cuban and United States special interests sections in Washington and Havana to embassy status.

At 10:30 AM, the Cuban Embassy will hold their ceremonial re-opening in presence of a U.S. delegation in Washington.

After embassies open, the two sides have pledged to begin a lengthy and complicated attempt to normalize overall relations, which today are impeded by matters such as the us economic embargo of Cuba and us control of the Guantanamo Bay naval base in eastern Cuba.