The US and Cuba moved to end five decades of Cold War hostility on Wednesday, agreeing to revive diplomatic ties in a surprise breakthrough that would also ease a crippling US trade embargo.
In the wake of a prisoner exchange, US President Barack Obama said Washington was ready for a “new chapter” in relations with communist Cuba and would re-establish its embassy in Havana, shuttered since 1961.
“We are all Americans,” Obama declared, breaking into Spanish for a speech that the White House portrayed as a bid to reassert US leadership in the Western Hemisphere.
Photo: AFP
Cuban President Raul Castro, speaking at the same time in Havana, confirmed that the former enemies had “agreed to re-establish diplomatic ties” after a half century of rancor.
“President Obama’s decision deserves the respect and acknowledgement of our people,” Castro said, while warning that the embargo — which he calls a “blockade” — must still be lifted.
In Washington, Obama said the US trade ban had failed and said he would urge the US Congress to lift it, while using his presidential authority to advance diplomatic and travel links.
“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” Obama said. “Through these changes, we intend to create more opportunities for the American and Cuban people and begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas.”
Obama later raised the hitherto unthinkable prospect of a US president embarking on a visit to Cuba, saying nothing was ruled out.
“I don’t have any current plans, but let’s see how things evolve,” Obama told ABC’s World News Tonight in an exclusive interview.
The surprise breakthrough came after Havana released jailed US contractor Alan Gross and a Cuban who spied for Washington and had been held for 20 years — one of the most important US agents in Cuba.
Havana also agreed to release dozens of political prisoners, a senior US official said.
The US in turn freed three Cuban spies, and Obama said he had instructed the US Department of State to re-examine its designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The US imposed a trade embargo against Cuba in 1960 and the two countries have not had full diplomatic relations since 1961.
The ensuing standoff was marked by incidents that threatened to send the Cold War to boiling point. CIA-backed Cuban exiles suffered a bloody defeat in the Bay of Pigs invasion and during the 1962 “Missile Crisis,” US warships blockaded the island to prevent the delivery of Soviet nuclear arms. The embargo hurt the Caribbean island state’s economy, but it failed to unseat the communist government led by Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul.
Senior Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, a member of the US Senate foreign relations committee, hailed the move as creating a “force for positive change in Cuba.”
However, Republicans quickly denounced the deal, in a foretaste of the resistance that Obama will face as he tries to persuade Congress to back a full end to the embargo.
“The White House has conceded everything and gained little,” Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio said.
US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner called the deal “another in a long line of mindless concessions to a dictatorship that brutalizes its people and schemes with our enemies.”
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