Cuban leader: I'd meet Obama

HAVANA — Cuban President Raul Castro told actor-director Sean Penn in an interview released Wednesday that he would like to meet President-elect Obama on "neutral ground" — and he suggested the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

The Cuban leader's offer came in a rare interview in Havana with Penn, who wrote about it for the Dec. 15 edition of The Nation magazine. The article was released on the magazine's Web site Wednesday.

Penn asked if Castro would meet with Obama in Washington, D.C. The Cuban president said he "would have to think about it," but that it would not be fair for either leader to go to the other's territory. Instead he suggested the base at Guantánamo.

"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 Guantánamo Bay," Castro said.

Raul Castro is largely seen as more pragmatic and conciliatory than his fiery older brother Fidel, and has offered to meet with U.S. officials several times since replacing his ailing sibling in mid-2006.

Cuba's main focus in such a meeting would be on normalizing trade, Castro said.

"The only reason for the blockade is to hurt us," he told Penn, using the term the communist leadership employs for the five-decade-old U.S. trade embargo. "Nothing can deter the revolution. Let Cubans come to visit with their families. Let Americans come to Cuba."

Obama has said he is willing to meet with Raul Castro without preconditions, and that after taking office Jan. 20 he would "immediately" lift all restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba. Under tough rules imposed under President Bush, Cuban Americans can now visit their relatives on the island only once every three years.