Cuba is ready for a warming of ties with the United States, but will never give in to demands to change Cuba’s socialist government and economy, President Raul Castro has said.
Speaking weeks after exchanging an impromptu handshake with US President Barack Obama at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela, Mr Castro again signaled that he was ready to talk, but would not capitulate to America.
“If we really want to move our bilateral relations forward, we’ll have to learn to respect differences,” he said in the speech to Cuba’s parliament over the weekend. “If not, we’re ready to take another 55 years in the same situation.”
However he added that Cuba would not ever become like the US, saying “we don’t demand that the US change its political or social system and we don’t accept negotiations over ours.” » | Peter Foster, Washington | Sunday, December 22, 2013
