Alan Gross, the American freed last week after five years in a Cuban jail, has reached a $3.2 million settlement with the U.S. government, media reports said Wednesday.

The U.S. government office he was doing work for in Cuba, the Agency for International Development, released a statement Tuesday confirming that a settlement had been reached, without disclosing the amount.

The U.S. official responsible for negotiating the transfers of terror suspects from the American-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is leaving his post, the State Department said late Monday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Cliff Sloan, Washington's special envoy for Guantanamo closure, resigned in keeping with his agreement to take on the difficult position for just 18 months.  

Hundreds of Cubans congregate each morning outside the U.S. interests section in Havana, hoping to get an elusive visa to visit their relatives in the united States.

This office, set up to partially restore the diplomatic contact the United States severed in 1961, was long the rallying point for anti-American protests spurred on by fiery speeches from communist leader Fidel Castro.

Iran has seized on Washington's historic rapprochement with Cuba after five decades of Cold War standoff as proof that big power sanctions do not work.

Cuban President Raul Castro said Saturday he was ready to discuss any topic with Washington after the historic bilateral rapprochement, but warned not to expect political change.

And while the leader of the Americas' only communist nation hailed the agreement for removing of an "obstacle" in U.S.-Cuba relations, he reiterated that "the most important thing, the end of the embargo" remained unresolved.

President Barack Obama has -- in just a few weeks and in spectacular fashion -- turned the tables on U.S. policy toward Latin America, neglected by Washington for much of this century.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that Cuba would change as a result of the communist-ruled island's rapprochement with Washington, but the improvements will not happen "overnight."

The irony is striking: just as the United States prepares to double down on sanctions against Russia, it has admitted that 50 years of sanctions against Cuba have been a failure.

"We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests," said President Barack Obama on Wednesday as he drew the curtain on what one expert calls the "most drawn-out foreign policy mistake in U.S. history".

While campaigning in 2008, Barack Obama said it was time to come up with a new U.S. policy towards Cuba. Now, with two years left in his second term in the White House, he has finally acted.

The president has broken with a half century of seeking to isolate Cuba by announcing plans to restore diplomatic relations with the communist-run island after a year and a half of secret negotiations.

Pope Francis led a chorus of global plaudits for Wednesday's breakthrough in U.S.-Cuban relations, hailed as "historic" in Europe and South America and prompting celebrations on the streets of Havana.

In a personal coup for the pope, it emerged that the Vatican had played a central role in bringing together the global capitalist superpower and the tiny communist island.