Cuban officials sat down yesterday with the highest-level US delegation to visit Havana in 35 years for landmark talks on reopening embassies and thawing long frozen ties.
US assistant secretary of state Roberta Jacobson, the most senior US official on the communist-ruled island since 1980, led the American delegation as the Cold War-era rivals opened a second day of meetings.
Cuba was represented by the director of the foreign ministry’s US affairs department, Josefina Vidal, at the capital’s Convention Centre.
The two sides claimed a good first day on Wednesday despite persistent disagreements over US migration policies, which Havana says encourages Cubans to flee to nearby Florida.
US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro surprised the world in December when they simultaneously announced plans to normalise relations following months of secret negotiations.
The raising of the US and Cuban flags in each other’s capitals would send powerful signals of the new era the two nations want to enter, though no timeline has been given for the reopening of embassies.
