Kerry raises U.S. flag at Havana embassy

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived Friday in Cuba to raise the U.S. flag over the recently restored American embassy in Havana.

Thursday night, workers attached the U.S. seal and a sign reading “Embassy of the United States of America” to the building. Friday’s ceremony marked the first time the flag has flown there in 54 years.

Kerry is the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the country in 70 years, and was accompanied by three of the U.S. marines who lowered the flag in 1961. From that time until 1977, both the seven-story U.S. embassy and Cuba’s embassy in Washington, D.C., remained vacant.

The official visit is another step toward normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations since President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced diplomatic ties would be reopened last December.

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