Castro open to Obama talks: report
Posted
Cuban President Raul Castro is open to meeting US President-elect Barack Obama on neutral ground to try to resolve the island's four-decade-old feud with Washington, according to an interview with a US magazine.
Havana's latest overture came in a rare interview for The Nation conducted by US actor Sean Penn, who travelled to Cuba after meeting Castro ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and before Mr Obama won the US presidential election on November 4.
"You asked if I would accept to meet with [Obama] in Washington. I would have to think about it. I would discuss it with all my comrades in the leadership," Mr Castro tells Penn in the interview published on The Nation's website.
"I think it would not be fair that I be the first to visit, because it is always the Latin American presidents who go to the United States first. But it would also be unfair to expect the president of the United States to come to Cuba. We should meet in a neutral place."
He suggested the two could meet in Guantanamo Bay, where the United States maintains a naval base, which Cuba considers a violation of its sovereignty.
"We must meet and begin to solve our problems, and at the end of the meeting, we could give the president a gift ... we could send him home with the American flag that waves over Guantanamo Bay," he said.
Raul Castro, 77, elected as president in February after his brother Fidel fell ill, has offered twice over the last two and a half years to hold talks with Washington.
Mr Obama has said he will reverse the Bush administration's policies that restricted Cuban Americans visiting Cuba and sending cash to their families there.
He is willing to talk to Mr Castro but would keep the 46-year-old trade embargo as leverage to influence democratic changes in the one-party state.
- Reuters
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