Cuba Makes New Overture to Obama

HAVANA TIMES — Cuban president Raul Castro said today that his offer to talk with the United States still stands, including topics such as human rights and freedom of the press, if the dialogue takes place “under equal conditions.”

“The day they want, the table is ready”, said Castro in Guantánamo during the annual celebration for July 26^th, the leading holiday on the Cuban political calendar, reported DPA news.

The US and Cuba do not have diplomatic relations and for over a half century Washington has tried to promote regime change on the island through an economic embargo (called blockade by Cuba) that has kept the island developing way below potential.

Castro made an improvised short intervention in Guantanamo, since the central speech marking the 59th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada and Cespedes garrisons, which sparked the Cuban revolution, was read by first VP Jose Ramon Machado Ventura.