
United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday that his chamber is unlikely to approve a US ambassador to Cuba, sending a quick rebuff to President Barack Obama and his drive to normalize relations with the U.S. neighbor and longtime Cold War foe.

President Obama will announce on Wednesday that the U.S. and Cuba have reached an agreement to open embassies in Havana and Washington, an administration official has confirmed. The announcement marks a major step in ending hostilities between the longtime foes and an opportunity to re-establish formal diplomatic relations and apparently will be simultaneous from Havana.

French President Francois Hollande has urged an end to the US trade embargo of Cuba and envisioned a larger French role in Cuba's engagement with the West during the first visit by a French head of state to Cuba. Havana is in foreign policy talks with both the European Union and the United States amid intense world interest in Cuba following detente with Washington in December.

Cuban President Raul Castro has praised Pope Francis for brokering the restoration of relations between Cuba and the US, announced in December. At the end of a Sunday audience at the Vatican, Castro said he had thanked the Pope for his contribution for the historic rapprochement.

Pope Francis and Cuban President Raul Castro will meet privately on Sunday at the Vatican, a spokesman said, four months before the pontiff's trip to the Caribbean island, his first as leader of the Catholic Church.

The White House announced on Tuesday that President Obama intends to remove Cuba from the US government's list of nations that sponsor terrorism, eliminating a major obstacle to the restoration of diplomatic relations after decades of hostilities. The decision to remove Cuba from the list represents a crucial step in Obama’s effort to turn the page on a Cold War-era dispute.

President Barack Obama and Cuba's Raul Castro sat down together on Saturday in the first formal meeting of the two country's leaders in over a half-century, pledging to reach for the kind of peaceful relationship that has eluded their nations for generations.

United States President Barack Obama addressed American leaders in the meeting currently taking place in the City of Panama praising the diplomatic rapprochement between Washington and Cuba which he called “a new beginning” in the bilateral relation.

Cuban President Raul Castro was received with a standing ovation as he readied to address the VII Summit of the Americas, held in Panama City, in a historic presentation. The Caribbean leader stressed the importance of the rapprochement with the United States but questioned the US policy towards Venezuela.

US President Barack Obama and Cuba's Raul Castro on Friday shook hands and sat near each other at the historic Panama Summit of the Americas, a new milestone in efforts to shed decades of animosity. Obama and Castro greeted each other as UN chief Ban Ki-moon looked on, before taking their seats with other regional leaders at a Panama City convention center.