Havana, July 17 (RHC) –- Moreover, addressing reporters at the conference, the Cuban diplomat said the United States may still be attempting to promote regime change in Cuba, despite a public promise from U.S. President Barack Obama disowning the practice.

With only three days to go before Cuba and the U.S. reopen embassies in each others’ capitals, the senior expert on U.S. affairs said that Washington needs to abandon its policy of regime change if the U.S. really wants better ties with the Caribbean nation.

"You have to have confidence in the words of the U.S. president... but you also have to see what really happens in practice," Gustavo Machin noted.

The diplomat ratified that the reestablishment of diplomatic relations brings a first stage of this process to an end and marks the beginning of a new stage which is longer and more complex on the road to the normalization of relations.

In this regard, he said that it is not possible to advance towards normalization without the lifting of the over-50-year U.S. economic blockade of Cuba.