U.S. President Barack Obama, after a highly anticipated meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro, said the two countries “are now in a position to move on a path toward the future.”

The two met Saturday afternoon on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas, shortly after their back-to-back addresses to other regional leaders.

“This is obviously an historic meeting” between the United States and Cuba, Obama said at the face-to-face meeting, referencing the countries’ complicated history. After 50 years of policy that had not worked, “it was time for us to try something new.”

‎That would include opening embassies in Washington and Havana, the president said.

Obama said that while most Americans and Cubans have responded positively to the policy change, deep and significant differences remain between the two countries. He said the U.S. will speak out for democracy and human rights, and Cuba will lift up concerns about U.S. policy as well.

“Over time it is possible for us to turn the page and develop a new relationship between our two countries,” the U.S. president said.

As for Castro, he told Obama he agrees with all the points he’d made and said he is open to discussion, but “we need to be patient, very patient.

“We might disagree on something today on which we could agree tomorrow.”

After Castro spoke, the men stood and shook hands.

The two sat down shortly after their back-to-back speeches to summit leaders. In his address, Castro delved into a long, impassioned history of Cuban grievances against the United States, but stopped to apologize to the U.S. leader, calling him an “honest man” and absolving him of responsibility for the longstanding U.S. embargo on Cuba and other actions taken under previous administrations.

“I have told President Obama myself that I am very emotional when I talk about the revolution,” he said. “I apologize because President Obama had no responsibility for this.”

The two leaders’ informal meeting is the first since Obama announced in December his intention to normalize relations with Havana. There has been no face-to-face discussion between the two countries’ top leaders in more than five decades.

In their speeches earlier Saturday, the U.S. and Cuban presidents both indicated a willingness to open a new chapter to end more than 50 years of icy relations.

Obama said he is focused on the future and is not, in his words, 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 has called on the U.S. Congress to begin work to end the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, a move Castro welcomed.

The Cuban president spoke for 48 minutes, much of that time delivering a stinging indictment of what he said was U.S. intervention in the island nation and the rest of Latin America.

But he praised Obama’s efforts to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which he said should have never included his country.

The terrorists, Castro said, are those like the C.I.A. operative who participated in the capture and interrogation of executed leftist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who died in 1967 in Bolivia in a failed attempt to lead a guerrilla uprising.

Regional benefits touted

Addressing the regional gathering of leaders just before Castro, Obama 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.

Appealing to other Latin American leaders, Castro said “we have to continue striving and supporting President Obama in his intentions to remove the blockade.”

The Cuban leader said he welcomes as “a positive step” Obama’s announcement that he soon will decide whether to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, which also includes Iran, Sudan and Syria.

There is speculation that move could come within hours, when the two leaders meet. Cuba’s demand to be taken off the list has been an obstacle in negotiations on restoring diplomatic ties.

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 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 former and perhaps 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 was quoted by 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.”

Obama said Friday he’s pleased that Cuba is being represented for the first time at the Summit of the Americas. The event, which takes place every three years, began in 1994.

In a speech Friday to a civil society group, Obama said, he expected normalized relations would benefit the people of Cuba, the United States and beyond.

“As we move towards the process of normalization, we’ll have our differences government to government with Cuba, on many issues, just as we differ at times with other nations within the Americas, just like we differ with our closest allies, there is nothing wrong with that,” Obama said. “But I am here to say when we do speak out we’re going to do so, because the United States of America does believe, and will always stand for, a certain set of universal values.”

Obama also reassured regional leaders the U.S. was no longer interested in imposing its will on Latin America: “The days in which our agenda in this hemisphere so often presumed the United States could meddle with impunity — those days are past.”

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
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