In a historic moment, the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has met with Cuban counterpart as relations between the superpower and the Communist island improve. This meeting foreshadows the upcoming encounter between President Barack Obama and Raul Castro.

Secretary Kerry met with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez during the Summit of the Americas being held in Panama, according to the BBC. The two officials held a closed-door meeting. President Obama is expected to meet Cuban leader Castro when he arrives for the summit.

"Secretary Kerry and Cuban Foreign Minister Rodriguez had a lengthy and very constructive discussion this evening. The two agreed they made progress and that we would continue to work to resolve outstanding issues," a senior U.S. official said.

President Obama has already started talking with the Cuban leader. According to Politico, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters that the president had a "not a particularly lengthy" call with Castro in which they discussed normalizing relations and opening embassies.

"They reviewed the fact that we're going to continued to have areas of common cooperation, but also areas of difference," Rhodes said, adding, "We're going to continue to speak up for human rights, just as we're going to have differences on the nature of Cuba's political system."

The U.S. is currently considering removing Cuba from a list of terrorist-sponsor states in which Iran, Syria and Sudan are also listed.

Although the State Department has sent its recommendation to the White House, the administration has not announced yet whether to remove Cuba from the list. However, the President could make the announcement at the summit.

President Obama is already very well regarded in Cuba since he announced to normalize ties with the island. A Univision/Fusion poll conducted between March 17-27 and interviewing 1,200 Cubans found the president is more popular than either Castro brother.

Around 80 percent of respondents had a positive opinion of the president while 47 percent and 44 percent had a positive one of Raul Castro and Fidel Castro respectively.