By Paul Lewis, July 20, 2015, published in the Guardian

The Cuban flag is added to the display inside the US State Department’s main entrance early on Monday morning. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images

The Cuban flag is added to the display inside the US State Department’s main entrance early on Monday morning. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba have been officially restored, with Cuba’s foreign minister taking the hugely symbolic step of raising his country’s flag at a newly designated embassy in Washington later on Monday.

Bruno Rodríguez, visiting the US capital for the first time in his life, conducted the ceremony at the mansion which has not functioned as an embassy for more than 50 years.

He was scheduled to attend the State Department for what both sides said would be “substantive” discussions with the secretary of state, John Kerry. The two top diplomats were set to appear together at a joint press conference.

At the flag-raising ceremony, Rodríguez said the restoration of US-Cuba relations would only make sense if the US lifted its comprehensive trade embargo and returned to Cuba the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

“The historic events we are living today will only make sense with the removal of the economic, commercial and financial blockade, which causes so much deprivation and damage to our people, the return of occupied territory in Guantánamo, and respect for the sovereignty of Cuba,” Rodríguez said.

The last time the US hosted a Cuban foreign minister in Washington in such fashion was in September 1958, when John Foster Dulles was secretary of state to President Dwight Eisenhower.

Read the full article here.