Obama: U.S. to Re-Open Relations With Cuba

U.S. President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the U.S. will be re-opening relations with Cuba after nearly a half-century of severed relations following the Cold War.

The president said during a speech Wednesday that the lack of relations with Cuba is an "outdated approach" that the U.S. should shed, referencing mainly the hostility that used to exist between democratic and communist countries during and after the Cold War.

"Neither the American nor Cuban people are well served by a rigid policy that's rooted in events that took place before most of us were born," the president said during his speech, delivered from the White House.

"These 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked. It's time for a new approach," the president added.

House Republicans have spoken out against the Obama administration's decision to reconnect with the Cuban government.

"Relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until the Cuban people enjoy freedom - and not one second sooner," said House Speaker John Boehner in a statement. "There is no 'new course' here, only another in a long line of mindless concessions to a dictatorship that brutalizes its people and schemes with our enemies."

The Vatican has hailed the two countries' reuniting, with Pope Francis saying in a statement that he "wishes to express his warm congratulations" for the two countries "with the aim of overcoming, in the interest of the citizens of both countries, the difficulties which have marked their recent history."