Cuban and US foreign ministers meeting in Panama

 

The Cuban and US foreign ministers have held a historic meeting in Panama, the highest-level encounter between the two countries before their presidents attend a landmark summit.

The US State Department's Twitter account published a picture of John Kerry, secretary of state, and his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez looking at the camera with straight faces as they shook hands late on Thursday April 09,2015, on the eve of the Summit of the Americas.

It was the first time the chief diplomats from the two nations met since 1958, one year before Fidel Castro's revolutionary guerrillas came to power.

John Kerry and Bruno Rodriguez were in a room with two chairs and a glass coffee table, but the tweet did not reveal more.

The presidents of the two nations, Barack Obama and Raul Castro, landed in Panama in advance of their own encounter set for the 35-nation summit on Friday and Saturday April 11,2015

Note

The leaders of the United States and Cuba have not had any significant meetings since the Castro brothers toppled US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and then steered their Caribbean country into a close alliance with the Soviet Union

USA imposed trade sanctions on Cuba from 1960 and broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961