PANAMA CITY Panama (AFP)- US President Barack Obama arrived home late Saturday, just hours after unprecedented face-to-face talks with Cuban President Raul Castro and a first meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Obama characterized his meeting with Castro — the first sitdown between leaders of both nations since 1956 — as “candid and fruitful,” while the White House said the US leader voiced support for a peaceful dialogue between Venezuela’s government and the opposition during brief talks with Maduro.

The historic talks in Panama, on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas, came after Obama and Castro announced in December that they would move to normalize ties between the United States and communist Cuba after more than a half-century of animosity.

Obama faced stinging criticism on his return to the US capital, with Senator Ted Cruz, a Cuban-American Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential race, accusing him of “caving to a communist dictator in our own hemisphere.