US and Cuban negotiators on Friday opened a second round of historic talks aimed at overcoming half a century of enmity and restoring full diplomatic ties.
The negotiating teams met at the State Department just before 9:00 am (1400 GMT) for round two, after an initial meeting in Havana last month broke the ice but ended with little sign of a breakthrough.
The talks are building on US President Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro's surprise announcement in December that the two Cold War adversaries had decided to normalize relations severed in 1961.
The US side in the talks is represented by Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, who faced Josefina Vidal, the Cuban foreign ministry's director for US affairs, across a long table flanked by their respective delegations.
US and Cuban negotiators on Friday opened a second round of historic talks aimed at overcoming half a century of enmity and restoring full diplomatic ties.
The negotiating teams met at the State Department just before 9:00 am (1400 GMT) for round two, after an initial meeting in Havana last month broke the ice but ended with little sign of a breakthrough.
The talks are building on US President Barack Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro’s surprise announcement in December that the two Cold War adversaries had decided to normalize relations severed in 1961.
The US side in the talks is represented by Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, who faced Josefina Vidal, the Cuban foreign ministry’s director for US affairs, across a long table flanked by their respective delegations.
