国际英语新闻:Obama, Castro Have 'Historic' Face-to-Face Meeting

Addressing the regional gathering of leaders just before Castro, Obama said he was focused on the future and was not caught up in ideology.

"The Cold War has been over for a long time, and I’m not interested in having battles that, frankly, started before I was born," he said.

Obama said he had called on Congress to begin work to end the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, a move Castro welcomed.

The president said re-establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba would enhance opportunities for the island nation, the United States and beyond.

"This shift in U.S. policy represents a turning point for our entire region," he said.

As the two-day summit opened Friday evening, Obama and Castro shook hands, a gesture widely seen as symbolic of their effort to bury decades of animosity.

It has been two years since their first handshake, which came at the memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Cuba’s status revisited

Obama announced Thursday in Jamaica that a State Department review of Cuba's status has been completed and said he was awaiting a final recommendation.

Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate's Foreign Relations panel, said the State Department had recommended removing Cuba from the terrorism list. "The United States has a unique opportunity to begin a fresh chapter with Cuba,'' he said.

The president previously signaled he would be willing to drop the "state terrorism" label as part of normalizing relations with Cuba. The three other countries on the list are Iran, Sudan and Syria.

The administration's recent overtures to Cuba have drawn sharp rebuke from critics such as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a possible future presidential candidate. He objected to Obama's likely meeting with Castro, calling the Cuban leader an "entrenched dictator," the Associated Press reported.

"President Obama is truly writing new chapters in American foreign policy,'' Graham said, according to AP. "Unfortunately, these latest chapters are ones of America and the values we stand for — human rights, freedom and democracy — in retreat and decline.''

Kerry and counterpart meet

The summit already has provided impetus for a meeting late Thursday between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Cuban counterpart — the highest-level direct meeting in decades between the two governments

A senior State Department official said that Kerry's talk with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez was "very constructive" and that both sides "agreed they made progress."