The three Cubans released in a prisoner exchange that paved the way for a historic breakthrough Wednesday in Havana's Cold War standoff with the United States are celebrated as heroes back home.

The United States and Cuba brought their bitter Cold War stand-off towards a historic close Wednesday, agreeing to revive diplomatic ties and to ease a five-decade U.S. trade embargo.

In the wake of a prisoner exchange, President Barack Obama said Washington is ready to review trade ties and to re-open its embassy in communist Cuba, which has been closed since 1961.

Cuba has freed Alan Gross, an American contractor jailed on the communist-ruled island since 2009, a U.S. official said Wednesday, amid signs of an imminent thaw in ties between the Cold War foes.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuba's President Raul Castro were both to speak at 1700 GMT on relations between the two countries, their respective governments said.

The first open pre-trial hearings with accused 9/11 plotters Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh since the release of a damning Senate report on CIA torture have been postponed until February, officials said.

Mohammed, Binalshibh and two others accused in the September 11, 2001 attacks had been scheduled to appear Monday before a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for the first of two days of hearings.

Caribbean leaders urged the United States to lift its 54-year-old "senseless" embargo against Communist-ruled Cuba on Sunday as they convened in Havana for a regional summit.

The summit -- bringing together the 15 CARICOM member states and Cuba -- aims to increase trade and cooperation within the group and with Cuba.

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica confirmed Friday that his country would take in six Guantanamo inmates, using the occasion to urge President Barack Obama to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

In an open letter published the day after Uruguayan media reported the prisoners would be transferred by the end of the year, Mujica confirmed the deal -- though without giving a date -- and called on Obama to end the "unjust and unjustifiable embargo on our sister republic of Cuba."

Uruguay will make good before the end of the year on its offer to the United States to take in six Guantanamo prisoners, a media report said Thursday.

Uruguay's leftist President Jose Mujica had announced in March that the South American country would take in the inmates on humanitarian grounds in an effort to help U.S. President Barack Obama fulfill his long-delayed promise to close the military prison in Cuba.

A delegation of five European officials recommended Wednesday that inmates cleared for release from the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be jailed under more flexible conditions, an aide said.

Invited by the United States, the delegation's informal visit was meant to help give Europe ideas on how it can help the United States shut down the controversial jail once and for all.

The family of a U.S. contractor jailed in Cuba urged President Barack Obama on Wednesday to bring him home, saying they feared for his life as he began a sixth year in prison.

The plea from the wife of Alan Gross came on the fifth anniversary of his December 3, 2009 arrest in Havana, and as the White House suggested his release would "remove an impediment" to improving relations between the two long-time rival nations.

Forty-one French tourists and two locals were injured in Cuba Monday when the bus they were traveling in hit another vehicle, media reports and diplomatic sources said.

In addition to the tourists, the Cuban driver and tour guide were also hurt, said the news agency Prensa Latina.