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

Gross’ release comes none too soon for his family, who have described his condition as worsening by the day.

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“Mentally vanquished, gaunt, hobbling and missing five teeth”, are how Gross’ lawyer and relatives described him to Reuters.

The family has also told AP of their incredible relief:

Bonnie Rubinstein, Gross’ sister, heard the news from a cousin, who saw it on television.

“We’re like screaming and jumping up and down,” she said in a brief telephone interview from her home in Texas.

AP’s diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee has happy news for cigar connoisseurs.

And the Wall Street Journal’s Natalie Andrews has slightly more expansive news.

Cuban President Raul Castro will also speak today at 12pm ET – though limited internet on the island and a lack of Cuban TV here in the states – will mean a slight delay in delivering his remarks to you online.

The effort to free Alan Gross has taken years and international effort, says the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe.

Part of the deal that secured the release of Alan Gross is an exchange of three Cubans convicted of espionage in Florida in 2001, per reports from AP and CNN.

The three Cubans were among the so-called “Cuban Five” and “Wasp Network” ordered by then President Fidel Castro to spy in south Florida. Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Geurrero and Ramon Labañino – 49, 56 and 51, respectively – have been in jail since 1998.

American officials have previously accused Cuba of using Gross as a hostage, although Cuba has charged several Americans over the years with illegally promoting democracy and related offenses.

Two compatriots of the prisoners reportedly released, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez, were previously freed after finishing their sentences.

You can read more about the Wasp Network and the “impoverished agents too tired to spy” in a report filed at the time by the Guardian’s Julian Borger.

President Obama hopes rapprochement with Cuba could be a Berlin Wall moment, the Guardian’s Dan Roberts (@robertsdan) writes from Washington.

Obama has been hoping that a major shift toward Cuba would become his Berlin Wall moment for some while, a desire symbolised most recently by a very public handshake with Raúl Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral last December.

But the ongoing imprisonment of Alan Gross was the very least of the many domestic political impediments in the way of any wider deal over trade, travel and diplomatic restrictions that have kept relations between the two countries in a Cold War deep freeze for decades.

It is is telling that the carefully orchestrated exchange of prisoners – something that must have taken months to negotiate – took place hours after US senators left Washington to go home for Christmas. It is also unthinkable that the Democratic White House would have risked such a move before November’s midterm elections, when hawks in both parties were already criticising him for similar concessions in Iran.

But the decision to attempt a complete Cuban “re-set” - to use the administration’s favoured phrase – is very much in keeping with Obama’s post-election radicalism.

It is a gamble that could backfire if relaxing the embargo does not create the desired internal pressure for reform inside Cuba, but Obama is not the only one who suspects that the existing, and very tired, US posture toward its near neighbour has long since proved past its sell-by date.

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The US has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba for decades, but Obama may only be able to act around the edges of its restrictions.

Obama can do a number of things to normalize relations, but needs congressional approval through the 1996 Helms Burton Act to make major changes to the embargo.

Officials admitted last week that the Obama administration had been speaking with its Cuban counterpart through various channels.

“The Cuban Government’s release of Alan on humanitarian grounds would remove an impediment to more constructive relations between the United States and Cuba,” Obama said in a statement.

Obama looks set to completely overhaul US policy and normalize relations with Cuba, according to officials speaking with the Associated Press.

President Obama will announce a thaw of sorts in US-Cuba relations, according to a senior administration official speaking anonymously to CNN.

The official also told CNN’s Elise Labott that Gross’ release coincides with “a separate spy swap”, and Cuba’s release of a person who had been jailed for more than two decades.

“We are charting a new course toward Cuba,” the official said. “The president understood the time is right to attempt a new approach.”

What that new approach entails is already subject of speculation, but details have yet to be confirmed.

Alan Gross, an American imprisoned in Cuba for five years, has left the island on a US government plane and is bound for the States, a senior official in the Obama administration has confirmed to the Guardian on condition of anonymity.

Cuban authorities arrested Gross, now 65, in 2009 on suspicion of espionage and he was later convicted him for distributing banned technology and trying to set up internet service. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Gross had worked as a subcontractor for USAid and his family has campaigned the US government for years to help secure his release. His health has deteriorated substantially in recent weeks, according to ABC, which was told by his lawyer that he could barely walk and has suffered vision damage.

President Obama will make a statement at 12pm ET and is expected to deliver remarks about US-Cuba relations more broadly, stoking speculation of a dramatic change in policy toward the communist island.

Cuban president Raul Castro is also expected to speak today.