People wait in a Cuban post office in Havana on Friday. The United States and Cuba have reached an understanding to re-establish direct postal services between the two countries through the implementation of a pilot plan for the transportation of mail.

DPA/AFP/Reuters/Washington/Havana

The US and Cuba will re-establish direct postal service for the first time in more than 50 years, the two countries announced on Friday.
Negotiators from Washington and Havana reached the agreement on Thursday in Miami, US State Department spokesman Joseph Crook said.
In the coming weeks a pilot plan will be put into place that would establish mail flights several times a week.
The plan should be “effective within the next few weeks, with the hope of eventually institutionalising it on a permanent basis in the future”, the Cuban embassy in Washington said.
For the last five decades mail between the US and Cuba has been routed through third countries.
Lea Emerson, head of International Postal Affairs for the US Postal Service, represented the US in the negotiations with a delegation led by Jose Ramon Cabanas Rodriguez, Cuban ambassador to the US, according to the State Department.
The move is the latest step in an ongoing normalisation of relations between the two countries after decades of enmity.
The US and Cuba re-opened embassies in July after a 54-year rupture with the communist-ruled island.
The reestablishment of ties followed an agreement in December 2014, a result of Vatican-mediated secret talks between Washington and Havana, and started with a prisoner exchange announced December 17.
The US economic embargo on most trade with Cuba can only be lifted by Congress, where the conservative majority has been sceptical of President Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Havana.
The two countries had opened talks in 2009 on restoring postal service and direct flights.
Commercial airline service has still not restarted, although the large Cuban-American community and other US citizens with a special license can travel to Cuba on charter flights.
Dozens of such flights connect Miami and Havana each week.
The two countries have already re-established a direct telephone link since the thaw.
The Cuban state telecommunications company, ETECSA, has said the new phone connection could eventually be used for Internet communications.
Cuba has one of the lowest rates of Internet access in the world, with just 3.4% of households connected to the Web.
Several deeply divisive issues remain untouched in the ongoing talks between Washington and Havana, including the embargo and the future of the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
On Tuesday, they began discussions on one of the thorniest outstanding issues: compensation claims on both sides.
Washington is seeking payment of between $7bn and $8bn for American citizens and companies whose property on the Caribbean island was confiscated by Fidel Castro’s government in the wake of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Havana for its part is seeking damages for its losses under the embargo – an estimated $121bn to date, according to the Cuban government.