Cuba is willing to keep improving ties with U.S., says Raul Castro

HAVANA: Cuba is willing to keep improving relations with the United States but there are still areas where no progress has been made yet, Cuban President Raul Castro said in a speech broadcast on Friday, a day after the anniversary of landmark detente with Washington.

In his speech, Castro recalled advances the two countries have made since Dec. 17 last year when he and U.S. President Barack Obama announced they would seek to normalize ties and set aside decades of Cold War-era hostilities.

"The government of Cuba is fully willing to continue advancing in the construction of a kind of relation with the United States that is different from the one that has existed throughout its prior history, that is based on mutual respect for sovereignty and independence," Castro said in the address, which was addressed to government and political leaders and broadcast on state TV without prior notice.

Castro, 84, also said the two countries had "not made any progress" on issues Cuba considers necessary for normal relations, such as the continued U.S. trade embargo of Cuba, the U.S. occupation of a naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, and immigration policy.

Human rights, Castro said, was one area "on which we have profound differences and about which we are having an exchange on the basis of respect and reciprocity."

Obama's administration embarked on the rapprochement after concluding that decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba had not succeeded in bringing about change. But even as the two countries draw closer, Washington continues to criticize communist-ruled Cuba for its one-party political system.