President Obama announced today the United States is establishing full diplomatic relations with Cuba, ending more than a half-century of official hostility. "To the Cuban people, America extends a hand of friendship," Obama said during a nationally televised press conference this afternoon.

Negotiations between the two countries—led by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis—have reportedly been going on in secret for 18 months.

"I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result," Obama said about the embargo against Cuba, which he said he will ask Congress to lift. "This policy has been rooted in the best of intentions. It has had little effect."

From the New York Times:

Officials said they would re-establish an embassy in Havana and carry out high-level exchanges and visits between the two governments within months. Mr. Obama will send an assistant secretary of state to Havana next month to lead an American delegation to the next round of talks on Cuban-American migration. The United States will also begin working with Cuba on issues like counternarcotics, environmental protection and human trafficking.

The United States will also ease travel restrictions across all 12 categories currently envisioned under limited circumstances in American law, including family visits, official visits and journalistic, professional, educational and religious activities, public performances, officials said. Ordinary tourism, however, will remain prohibited.

Mr. Obama will also allow greater banking ties and raise the level of remittances allowed to be sent to Cuban nationals to $2,000 every three months from the current limit of $500. Intermediaries forwarding remittances will no longer require a specific license from the government. American travelers will also be allowed to import up to $400 worth of goods from Cuba, including up to $100 in tobacco and alcohol products.

Cuban president Raul Castro announced the agreement at a press conference held the same time as Obama's. "This expression by President Barack Obama deserves the respect and recognition by all the people and I want to thank and recognize support from the Vatican and especially from Pope Francis for the improvement of relations between Cuba and the United States," Castro said.

"This does not mean the principal issue has been resolved," Castro added. "The blockade which causes much human and economic damage to our country should cease."

As the two presidents announced the changes, church bells began ringing in Havana.

The announcements came just hours after Cuba released Alan Gross, an American who'd been imprisoned in the country for more than five years, on "humanitarian grounds." The U.S. also released three Cuban intelligence agents in exchange for an American spy who has been imprisoned in Cuba for more than 20 years.

Next week will mark the 23rd anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the event that effectively ended the threat of international communist empire, which had been the strategic basis for the United States' Cuba policy.

[Top image via AP]