Spotlight: Cuba sees opportunities, challenges in Summit of Americas

The seventh Summit of the Americas is an important moment for Cuba, as continued thawing of its relations with the United States has brought new opportunities to the country despite significant obstacles still lying ahead.

This is the first time that a Cuban leader has been invited to attend the regional gathering since the first summit in 1994, when the Caribbean island country was blocked by the U.S. to show up at all summits of the Americas.

IMPROVEMENT OF CUBA-U.S. TIES

The tide of bilateral hostility changed on Dec. 17, 2014, when Cuban leader Raul Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama announced that, not without surprise, both sides would seek to normalize their bilateral relations which broke off in 1961.

The announcement followed a prisoner swap and the U.S. promise of further easing restrictions on remittance, travel and banking by the Cubans.

Havana and Washington have also held several rounds of talks, as both sides aspired to re-establish the official diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Commenting on the meeting between Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and his U.S. counterpart John Kerry, Obama's senior advisor Ben Rhodes said that it is about to change how the United States engages Cuba.

The detente of the Cuban-U.S. relations also helped Cuba to improve its relations with other Western countries.

French President Francois Hollande is scheduled to visit Cuba in May, making him the first leader from major Western countries to visit the island country since the detente.

PLATFORM FOR ATTRACTING FOREIGN CAPITAL

Cuba now is carrying out its own experiment on economic reforms, as it has sent a large delegation to the summit in order to attract foreign investment.

The United States has slapped economic blockade and embargo on the island since 1962, causing an enormous loss of wealth for Havana.

But business interest in the country has boomed since last December, and many U.S. business delegations have visited Cuba for possibilities of economic cooperation.

Though the European Union has not signed any formal document on trade, most of the group's members already have extensive economic and trade exchanges with the Caribbean country.

But due to the U.S. sanctions against the country, foreign companies which are doing business with Havana often faced harsh punishment in the United States.

DIFFICULTIES OF CUBAN-U.S. RELATIONS

Despite recent breakthroughs in relations between Cuban and the United States, contentious issues such as human rights and the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay still remained, which would jeopardize further improvement of the bilateral ties.

The U.S. State Department still labeled Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a status first assigned in 1982, despite the State Department's annual report for 2013 stated that no evidence was found to prove the country providing training or weapons to terrorist groups.

Cuba is still cut off from U.S. investment by a comprehensive trade embargo. While Obama wants to dismantle it, it is actually the power of U.S. Congress, which is fully controlled by Republicans now, to impose or lift an economic sanction.

The two-day Summit of the Americas kicked off on Friday in Panama City, capital of Panama, gathering heads of state and government, and high-level officials from across the Americas. Endi