Castro Tells US Actor He Open To Obama Talks

`Perhaps we could meet at Guantanamo,` Castro says.

Cuban President Raul Castro is open to meeting U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on neutral ground to try to resolve the island's four-decade-old feud with Washington, according to an interview with a U.S. magazine.

Havana's latest overture came in a rare interview for The Nation conducted by U.S. actor Sean Penn, who traveled to Cuba after meeting Castro ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and before Obama won the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 4.

"You asked if I would accept to meet with (Obama) in Washington. I would have to think about it. I would discuss it with all my comrades in the leadership," Castro tells Penn in the interview published on The Nation's website.

"I think it would not be fair that I be the first to visit, because it is always the Latin American presidents who go to the United States first. But it would also be unfair to expect the president of the United States to come to Cuba. We should meet in a neutral place."

He suggested the two could meet in Guantanamo Bay, where the United States maintains a naval base, which Cuba considers a violation of its sovereignty.

"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 Guantanamo Bay," he said.

Raul Castro, 77, elected as president in February after his brother Fidel fell ill, has offered twice over the last two and a half years to hold talks with Washington.

Obama has said he will reverse the Bush administration's policies that restricted Cuban Americans visiting Cuba and sending cash to their families there. He is willing to talk to Castro but would keep the 46-year-old trade embargo as leverage to influence democratic changes in the one-party state.

"While both Raul Castro and Barack Obama have repeatedly expressed a desire to initiate a dialogue between the U.S. and Cuba, they clearly aren't interested in discussing the same issues," said Dan Erikson, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue policy group in Washington.

A spokeswoman for the Obama transition team declined to comment. The president-elect said during his campaign said he would seek "direct diplomacy" without preconditions with "friend and foe" alike.

Asked by Penn about priorities for any talks, Castro replied: "Normalize trade." He suggested in the seven-hour conversation that U.S. oil companies could be invited to explore for petroleum reserves in offshore projects should the trade embargo be lifted.

Raul Castro has rarely given interviews during Cuba's revolution and the sit-down with Penn over dinner was one of his first since he took over governing the island in 2006 after his brother became sick. He became president in February.

"Good relations would be mutually advantageous," Castro said. "Perhaps we cannot solve all of our problems, but we can solve a good many of them."