The U.S. flag will be raised Friday in Cuba. Cuba and the United States re-established diplomatic relations for the first time since the nineteen sixties. Secretary of State John Kerry will raise the flag over the U.S. embassy in Havana.
Cuban dissidents have not been invited to the flag raising ceremony. Mr. Kerry is to meet with a small group of the dissidents at the home of the chief of the U.S. mission later Friday.
Cuba is located 145 kilometers off the southeastern U.S. coast, but the two countries broke off diplomatic ties in 1961 after Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. The current Cuban leader, President Raul Castro, and U.S. President Barack Obama announced a resumption in relations last December.
