WASHINGTON: The United States and Cuba on Wednesday agreed a historic deal to re-establish full diplomatic relations, severed 54 years ago in the angry heat of the Cold War.

Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro exchanged letters agreeing to unfreeze ties on July 20, when embassies in Washington and Havana can be reopened.

Obama hailed the deal as a “historic step forward” that would end a failed and archaic policy of isolating the still Communist-ruled island. Obama — who was born the year the US embassy was closed — called on domestic critics to stop “clinging to a policy that was not working.” He pressed the Republican-controlled Congress to end a throttling US trade embargo set up in 1962.

“It’s long past time for us to realize that this approach doesn’t work,” he said in a White House Rose Garden address.

“It hasn’t worked for 50 years. It shuts America out of Cuba’s future and it only makes life worse for the Cuban people.” US president Dwight Eisenhower shuttered the US embassy in Havana on January 3, 1961, after a guerrilla insurgency brought Fidel Castro to power and placed Cuba firmly within the orbit of the Soviet Union.

The embassy closure foreshadowed conflagrations across the Straits of Florida that would define an era: from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to the crisis over Russian missiles sites in Cuba.

Raul Castro on Wednesday expressed his desire to “develop respectful and cooperative relations between our two peoples and governments,” in his letter to Obama.

Half a lifetime ago, Castro landed in Cuba with his older brother Fidel, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and dozens of other rebels to overthrow the unelected US-backed government. On July 20, he will send Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez to open the Cuban embassy in Washington. The delegation will include “prominent representatives of Cuban society” the government said in a statement.

No date was set for opening the US embassy in Cuba, but Obama announced that “later this summer, Secretary John Kerry will travel to Havana formally to proudly raise the American flag over our embassy once more.” Polls show a majority of Americans support Obama’s efforts to improve ties.

But powerful Cuban-Americans oppose restoring ties with Havana’s government and could yet pose problems for further rapprochement. Republican presidential candidates who have ties to Cuba, including Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, have been outspoken in their opposition to the thaw. Rubio, a senator from Florida, accused Obama of giving concessions as Cuba continued to stifle democracy.

“It is time for our unilateral concessions to this odious regime to end,” he said. “I intend to oppose the confirmation of an ambassador to Cuba until these issues are addressed.”—AFP