For United States, it's flag day in Cuba

US Secretary of State John Kerry is set to raise the US flag at the American embassy in Havana, a symbolic step in the restoration of relations between the two Cold War adversaries.

Friday's ceremony - raising the flag over the building for the first time in 54 years - comes nearly four weeks after the United States and Cuba formally renewed diplomatic relations and upgraded their diplomatic missions to "embassies."

While the Cubans celebrated with a flag-raising in Washington on July 20 (pictured above), the Americans waited until Kerry, who's been busy in the Middle East, could travel to Havana.

"More people will travel. There will be more exchange," Kerry said ahead of the trip. "More families will be reconnected. And hopefully, the government of Cuba will itself make decisions that will begin to change things."

Been a while…

Kerry, the first secretary of state to visit Cuba in 70 years, will be accompanied by three US Marines who lowered the flag there in January 1961. Washington severed diplomatic ties with Havana as relations soured soon after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Seeking an end to the hostility, Cuban President Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama announced late last year they would restore diplomatic ties, reopen embassies, and work to normalize relations.

Obama has used executive power to relax some US travel and trade restrictions, but the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has resisted his attempts to end the wider economic embargo.

Cuba wants the US to end the embargo, return the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in the east of the island, and halt radio and television signals beamed into Cuba.

For the US, emphasis will likely be on Cuba's human rights record, the return of fugitives granted asylum, and the claims of Americans whose property was nationalized after Fidel Castro rose to power.

glb/jil (Reuters, AFP)