Reply #5: Cuban leader willing to talk to Obama at neutral venue

[Judi Lynn]

Cuban leader willing to talk to Obama at neutral venue
By David Usborne in New York
Friday November 28 2008

RAUL CASTRO, the Cuban leader, has told the actor Sean Penn that he would be willing to meet Barack Obama, the president-elect, after he assumes power in the United States, although he added the encounter should take place in a "neutral location", for instance Guantanamo Bay.

"We must meet and begin to solve our problems," President Castro said during a highly unusual interview given to Mr Penn in Havana a few weeks before Mr Obama was elected. His article will be published in the December 15 issue of 'The Nation' magazine.

The purpose of such a summit, Fidel Castro's younger brother added, would be primarily to end the trade restrictions that the US has imposed on the Caribbean island since its Marxist revolution, which will be marked by 50th anniversary celebrations in January.

Penn, whose new film about Harvey Milk, the gay rights pioneer and city supervisor in San Francisco opened in the US this week, travelled in October to Venezuela and Cuba.

Critics of American policy towards Cuba have taken heart from the election of Mr Obama, who said during his campaign that he would lift the new restrictions imposed by George Bush on exchanges with Cuba.

He promised to allow Cuban-Americans to visit the island as often as they liked and to send as much money as they wished to their families there.

More:
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/cuban-leader-willing-to-talk-to-obama-at-neutral-venue-1556240.html