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US Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson will lead a delegation travelling to the Cuban capital, Havana, later this month. The BBC reports:
These will be the first high level talks since Cuba and the US announced last month that they were restoring relations. The US State Department said the talks - to take place on 21 and 22 January - would focus on migration.
The United States severed ties with Cuba's communist government in 1961. Despite the lack of diplomatic relations, the two countries hold routine talks on migration every six months. The state department said that the next meeting would also seek to push forward the rapprochement process announced by US President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro on 17 December.
The agenda for the talks has not been announced, but it will include discussions on re-establishing diplomatic relations and the decision announced by Mr Obama and Mr Castro to reopen embassies in Washington and Havana, said state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
The US Coast Guard has reported a steep increase in the number of Cubans trying to cross the 90-mile (145km) wide Florida Straits since the 17 December announcement. Nearly 500 migrants either managed to enter the US on makeshift boats or were stopped on their way to Cuba in December, an increase of more than 100% over the same month in 2013.
Many Cubans fear the US will cancel its current "wet foot, dry foot" policy, says the BBC's Carlos Chirinos in Miami.
The policy allows Cuban migrants who make it to US shores to stay while those intercepted at sea are repatriated.
President Obama's proposal to restore relations still needs to be approved by Congress, where it faces opposition from many Republicans and anti-Castro lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Cuba has freed eight more detainees, dissidents said on Thursday, as Havana begins to release 53 people the United States considers political prisoners as part of an agreement aimed at ending decades of hostility between the two nations. Reuters writes:
Including three detainees released on Wednesday, 11 prisoners have been liberated over the past 24 hours, political opposition groups on the communist-led island said. All but three of them are members of the dissident Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).
Havana's commitment to free the 53 prisoners was a major part of a historic deal announced last month under which the two governments agreed to renew diplomatic relations after more than 50 years. Like the detainees released on Wednesday, those freed on Thursday had been accused of relatively minor offenses. The UNPACU detainees freed on Thursday were Ernesto Riveri Gascon, Lazaro Romero Hurtado, Emilio Plana Robert, Yohannes Arce Sarmientos and Yordenis Mendoza Cobas, UNPACU said.
Romero was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to four years behind bars on charges including making a public disturbance and threats, apparently during a confrontation with police. Riveri was given two years on the same charges.
Plana was detained in 2012 and given a three-and-a-half-year term for his activities with the opposition, dissidents said. Arce had been awaiting sentencing after being arrested last year on similar allegations while Mendoza was detained last year and given a three-year prison term, dissidents said. Another detainee freed on Thursday was named by dissidents as Jose Manuel Rodriguez Navarro. They said he was detained in 2013 and sentenced to four years in prison, allegedly for writing letters denouncing Cuba's government. The latest to be released were Haydee Gallardo and her husband, Angel Figueredo.
Gallardo, a member of the "Ladies in White" dissident group, was detained along with her spouse last year after shouting anti-government slogans at a rally. "I still can't believe it. I didn't expect it," Gallardo told Reuters by telephone. "I don't have words to say how happy I feel to be back with my family, my kids, and my husband." Dissident groups said most of those freed over the last 24 hours were released on condition that they report regularly to the authorities.
