HAVANA (Reuters) – Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro put a damper on rising hopes for better US-Cuba relations by saying US President Barack Obama had misinterpreted his brother’s apparently conciliatory words.
The 82-year-old Castro also signaled that Cuba may be unwilling to make concessions to end 50 years of hostilities with the United States because the Cuban government believes it is not to blame for their troubled history.
He criticized Obama for supporting the 47-year-old US trade embargo against Cuba, saying he had now “made it his own.”
Analysts said Castro’s comments, published on the Internet and on Wednesday in Cuba’s state-run press, were a blow to Obama’s carrot-and-stick strategy with the communist-led island but had not killed the possibility of US-Cuba rapprochement.
“There’s no doubt the president interpreted badly the declaration by Raul,” said Castro, referring to a statement by his younger brother, President Raul Castro, on Thursday that Cuba was prepared to discuss “everything” with the United States, including historically prickly issues such as political prisoners and human rights.
Raul Castro’s words sent hopes for a thaw in US-Cuba relations soaring when the Obama administration took them as a favourable Cuban response to Obama’s earlier decision to grant Cuban Americans the right to travel and send remittances freely to their homeland.
Obama, speaking in a news conference on Sunday at the close of a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, called President Castro’s comments an “advance” and urged Cuba to take other steps such freeing political prisoners and reducing the fees it charges to change dollars into Cuban money.
Obama said Washington would make further changes in response to what Cuba does.
