Cuba's Foreign Affairs Ministry reports that the date features in a letter from Barack Obama to Raul Castro, delivered by hand by Jeffrey DeLaurentis, head of the US interests in Cuba, to Cuba's acting Foreign Minister Marcelino Medina. The letter requests "the resumption of diplomatic relations", fruit of a two-year negotiation between Washington and Havana, long after relations between the two countries broke down half a century ago. President Obama will announce at 11 a.m. (Eastern Time Zone), at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, the reopening of he United States Embassy in Havana, which was shut down by Dwight Eisenhower in 1961. This is the most important step in the process of rapprochement which began on Dec. 17th last year. (AGI)