The United States and Cuba have opened two days of historic talks in Havana aimed at ending decades of Cold War-era animosity and re-establishing diplomatic relations.
The meetings in Havana follow the historic decision by US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro in December to seek normal ties.
US deputy assistant secretary of state Alex Lee and Cuban foreign ministry official Josefina Vidal sat down on Wednesday for the first day of closed-door talks in the capital's Convention Center, which focused on migration issues.
Their opening remarks were not broadcast.
The reopening of mutual embassies, closed after relations broke in 1961, will be at the centre of Thursday's talks, which will be led on the US side by Roberta Jacobson, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.
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Jacobson will be the highest-ranking American official to visit the communist island since 1980 when she lands later on Wednesday.
On the eve of the talks, Obama urged the Congress to end the decades-long embargo against Cuba, which the Castro regime has blamed for the country's economic woes.
"In Cuba, we are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date," Obama said in his annual State of the Union speech late on Tuesday.
"When what you have done doesn't work for fifty years. It's time to try something new."
A Cuban foreign ministry official sought to downplay expectations of major breakthroughs this week.
"We can't expect that everything will be resolved in one meeting," the official said, according to state media.
"The normalisation of relations is a much longer and complex process in which we must discuss issues of interests for both sides."
