Obama and Castro hail historic breakthrough for US-Cuba relations - as it happened

We’re going to wrap our live coverage of the prisoner exchange and remarkable rapprochement between the US and Cuba after 50 years of animosity and embargo.

• Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced the restoration of full relations between the United States and Cuba, along with a raft of reconciliatory actions. Obama said the US and Cuba have chosen “to cut loose the shackles of the past”, and Castro called for the embargo to end.

• Cuba released American Alan Gross from prison after nearly five years of captivity. Cuba also freed a spy held for more than 20 years, an act the US intelligence chief called “a fitting closure to a Cold World chapter”.

• The US announced overhauls to commerce, travel and internet restrictions, and the restoration of an American embassy in Havana. Cuba said it will release 53 political prisoners, allow greater internet services, and work with international groups like the UN. The White House refused to rule out a visit by President Obama to Havana.

• The US will free three Cubans convicted of espionage-related charges in 2001, members of the so-called Cuban Five and Wasp Network. Castro hailed their freedom as a fulfillment of his brother Fidel’s declaration that “they will return.”

• Pope Francis and Canada revealed roles facilitating the talks. The pontiff praised Cuba for having recently relaxed its economic policies and quietly cooperating in backroom meetings over the past year or so.

• Alan Gross thanked the president and said ordinary Cubans deserve no blame for his imprisonment or health problems. He urged both the US and Cuba to rescind their “belligerent policies”.
  

• Congressional leaders and presidential hopefuls lashed out at the president for “vindicating a dictator”. Obama requires Congress to lift the embargo, but faces factions in both parties unhappy with renewed relations.

Visibly moved and grateful, Alan Gross urged the US and Cuba to end their mutually “belligerent policies”.

How does a new era of US-Cuban relations affect the average American?

My colleague Amanda Holpuch (@holpuch) has written a handy guide to answer that very question, including the important questions such as “Can you go to Cuba?”

“Not as a tourist,” she says.

Travel rights are being expanded for the 12 categories of people who could already travel to Cuba with either a general or specific license. Now, people visiting family, traveling for school, journalism, research, humanitarian projects and other reasons covered under those categories only need to acquire a general license, which does not require permission or advance notification to US officials.

However, if you want to go just to be a tourist, the previous restrictions remain in place. That means getting to Cuba in the same way people have been for the past few decades – by traveling through a different country. Of course, that’s illegal.

But what if you do get into Cuba? What can you bring back?

US travelers who acquire one of the two licenses required for travel can now import $400 worth of goods from Cuba – no more than $100 of which can be alcohol and tobacco products, combined. Previously, no goods of Cuban origin could be brought into the US. If you go without one of the licenses, you cannot bring back anything.

You can read Amanda’s full piece here.

“The benefactors of President Obama’s ill-advised move will be the heinous Castro brothers,” writes Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, brother of former president George W, and possible presidential contender in 2016.

Bush has released a statement expressing how “delighted” he is about Alan Gross’ release and how utterly appalled he is by diplomacy with Cuba.

The Obama administration’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba is the latest foreign policy misstep by this president, and another dramatic overreach of his executive authority. It undermines America’s credibility and undermines the quest for a free and democratic Cuba.

The benefactors of President Obama’s ill-advised move will be the heinous Castro brothers who have oppressed the Cuban people for decades.

I am delighted that Alan Gross has been released. It will be a joy and relief for his wife and family to have him home this Hanukkah season. He is innocent and should never have been in prison in the first place, nor spent five long years there as he suffered in poor health. It is, however, unfortunate that the United States chose to release three convicted spies.

You can read his full statement here.

A unilateral, indefinite ceasefire has been declared by Farc – the Colombian rebel group with which Cuba has been critical in mediating talks.

In recent years the group has declared ceasefires around the holidays, but never with the phrase “that should turn into an armistice” included in the press release.

We don’t know whether the breakthrough in US talks somehow caused a diplomatic ripple that affected negotiations with Farc, but journalist Daniel Coronell writes “there are no coincidences. This release by Farc was made today in Havana, Cuba.”

The Farc press release was indeed written in Cuba, according to the Spanish version of the statement. Cuba has mediated talks between Colombia’s government and Farc for years; Farc says that the ceasefire will take effect on 20 December.

The statement says that “the coming months are essential for peace and reconciliation in Colombia.”

You can read the full statement here (Spanish) and an abbreviated English version here.

A summary of the key developments so far.

• Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced the restoration of full relations between the United States and Cuba, a historic rapprochement after 50 years of frozen terms. Obama described the changes as “a new chapter among the nations of the Americas”, and Castro called for an end to the US’s economic embargo.

• Cuba released American Alan Gross from prison after nearly five years of captivity. Cuba also freed a spy held for more than 20 years, an act the US intelligence chief called “a fitting closure to a Cold World chapter”.

• The US will return three Cubans convicted of espionage-related charges in 2001, members of the so-called Cuban Five and Wasp Network. Castro hailed the trade as a fulfillment of his brother Fidel’s declaration that “they will return.”

• The diplomatic overhaul after decades of estrangement and embargo will restore an American embassy in Havana, ease travel, commerce and internet restrictions, and review the US position that Cuba sponsors terror. The White House refused to rule out a visit by President Obama to Havana.

• Pope Francis and Canada revealed roles facilitating the talks. The pontiff praised Cuba for having recently relaxed its strict economic policies and quietly cooperating in backroom meetings over the past year or so.

• Alan Gross thanked the president and said ordinary Cubans deserve no blame for his imprisonment or health problems. He said he supported the “game-changer” reconciliation between nations and praised his family, lawyer, Congress and the administration for securing his release.
  

• Members of Congress lashed out at the president for “vindicating a dictator”, and have signaled they will try to block any attempt to lift the economic embargo. Obama requires Congress to fully lift the embargo.

Q: What would President Obama say today to President Kennedy, who initiated these policies?

Earnest: “I think even President Kennedy would acknowledge … that change was neeed. Certainly throughout his public service President Kennedy was somebody who did believe in openness and engagement.”

He says Kennedy would have supported people’s rights to self-determination and personal freedoms.

Kennedy’s foreign policy legacy, which includes heightened intervention in Vietnam and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, is controversial among historians – but Earnest did earlier admit in the briefing: “I’m no scholar.”

Asked about the ambassadorship that would come with a restored Havana embassy, Earnest cracks “well it’s sure to be an interesting job.”

He also doesn’t back down from an apparently very real possibility of President Obama making a trip to Cuba:

“It is not unprecedented for the president of the United States to travel to countries where we have major concerns about their respect for human rights. In those conversations the president brought up with leaders their failure to do as much as we believe they should to respect … freedoms as much as they should.”

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, also welcomes today’s news.

“We see this as a step in the right direction,” state-news outlet Interfax quotes Ryabkov.

Naturally, Ryabkov spins the news into a omment about the sanctions placed on his own country by the US: “We do not believe that imposing sanctions by the US on whatever country has legitimate basis and legal grounds.”

Russia’s economy is currently reeling from a plummeting rouble and haphazard attempts by the Kremlin to stop capital flight and the depreciation of its currency.

A reporter asks Earnest whether Castro made any specific guarantees to Obama about increasing freedoms or democratic reforms. Her question boils down to whether the White House is acting on faith with Raul Castro and the Cuban government.

Earnest: “The policy that the president believes is in the best interests of our economy, in the best interests of our national security, and that will empower the Cuban people.”

“Frankly it doesn’t hinge upon the trustworthiness of the Cuban leader.

“What we have confidence in is that that policy that we have announced today will put pressure on the Castro regime to protect and respect the kind of human rights that under the old policy they repeatedly ignored.

“We already have seen the Cuban regime take more steps in the last day than we have in the last 50 years.”

He says today’s changes will “remove the distraction of the failed US policy”.

A highlight reel of President Obama’s historic speech announcing the greatest thaw of US-Cuban relations in decades, courtesy the Guardian’s video team.

Earnest is correct that many Europeans support reconciliation between the US and Cuba, even if they have an odd way of expressing it.

French journalist Frederic Martel translated: “This genius move by Barack Obama assures his place in history. It’s about time.”