DHAKA: US president Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro shook hands and sat near each other at a historic Summit of the Americas, a new milestone in efforts to end decades of animosity.

Obama and Castro, separated by the presidents of Ecuador and El Salvador, stood before taking their seats in the second of three rows at a Panama City convention centre as the country’s national anthem was sung. 

The sight of Obama and Castro in the same room instantly became a potent symbol of their bid to renew diplomatic ties that were severed in 1961.

It was the first time that a Cuban leader attended the summit in its 21-year history, reports The Straits Times.

Earlier, Obama and Castro ‘greeted each other and shook hands’, the White House said. They briefly shook hands once before, at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in 2013.

A US official characterized the greeting as an ‘informal interaction’, adding that ‘there was not a substantive conversation between the two leaders’.

BDST: 1620 HRS, APR 11, 2015
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