Cuba restores ties with South Korea after 65 years

Cuba, a longtime ally of North Korea, announced Wednesday it was restoring diplomatic ties with South Korea which have been broken off since 1959.

"On February 14, 2024, diplomatic and consular relations between Cuba and South Korea are established," read a brief statement from the Cuban foreign ministry.

Seoul and Havana first established diplomatic ties in 1949, but they were ruptured a decade later when former leader Fidel Castro seized power during the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba then turned towards fellow communist nation North Korea.

While Cuba and South Korea have not had diplomatic relations for decades, they have in recent years forged important commercial ties in the automotive, electronic, and mobile phone industries, according to a 2021 study by the International Policy Research Center, a Cuban think tank.

In 2005, a South Korean trade investment office established a presence in Havana, and gave a $70 million line of credit to Cuba, the same study reported.

Havana has always favored a negotiated solution to the conflict between the two Koreas, which split at the end of World War II. Tensions have ratcheted up between the two sides in recent months, with the North's leader Kim Jong Un declaring Seoul his principal enemy.