Historic breakthrough in US-Cuba relations

The United States and Cuba made a historic breakthrough in their Cold War stand-off Wednesday, moving to revive diplomatic ties and launch measures to ease a five-decade US trade embargo.

In the wake of a prisoner exchange, President Barack Obama said the United States was ready to review trade ties and to re-open its embassy in communist Cuba that has been closed since 1961.

Cuba's President Raul Castro, in a simultaneous address in Havana, confirmed that the former enemies had "agreed to re-establish diplomatic ties" after more than half a century.

Castro cautioned that the issue of the embargo -- which he called a "blockade" -- remained to be resolved.

In Washington, Obama admitted the US embargo had failed and said he would approach the US Congress to discuss lifting it alongside the advances in diplomatic and travel links.

"We are all Americans," Obama declared in Spanish, in a set-piece White House address marking a historic attempt to reassert US leadership in the Western hemisphere. 

Obama hailed the support he said that Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, and the Catholic Church had provided in brokering better relations between the long-time enemies.

The breakthrough came after Havana released jailed US contractor Alan Gross and a Cuban who spied for Washington and had been held for 20 years -- and whom Obama called one of the most important US agents in Cuba.
 
The United States in turn released three Cuban spies, and Obama said he had instructed the US State Department to re-examine its designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
 
"We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to...