Diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba have been officially restored, with Cuba's foreign minister set to take the hugely symbolic step of raising his country's flag at a newly designated embassy in Washington later on Monday.

Bruno Rodríguez, visiting the US capital for the first time in his life, will conduct the ceremony at the mansion which has not functioned as an embassy for more than 50 years.

He will later attend the State Department for what both sides say will be "substantive" discussions with secretary of state John Kerry. The two top diplomats will appear together at a joint press conference.

The last time the US hosted a Cuban foreign minister in Washington in such fashion was in September 1958, when John Foster Dulles was secretary of state to President Dwight Eisenhower.

Diplomatic relations were broken off by Eisenhower in 1961, after the deterioration in relations that followed Fidel Castro's revoultionary coup. That was the same year that Barack Obama – the driving force behind secret talks with Cuba that culminated in his announcement of a new era of cooperation – was born.

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A picture made available on Friday shows the future US embassy in Havana. Photograph: Michael Kappeler/EPA

Obama agreed to the precise timing for normalisation of relations, which will also involve the opening of a US embassy in Havana, in an exchange of letters with Cuban president Raúl Castro earlier this month. The embassy opening will be an important milestone for Obama, whose second term in office is becoming defined by a recalibration of foreign policy that has enraged his conservative critics.