Cuban President Raul Castro opened a Caribbean summit Monday by calling for economic and political integration in the region, and urging action against an "unfair" globalized world. The summit - bringing together the 15 CARICOM member states and Cuba - aims to increase trade and co-operation within the group and with Cuba.
"I propose that we share viable ideas and proposals to keep working together to develop bilateral co-operation and exchanges, and to diversify our economic and trade relations to face the challenges of the globalized, unfair and unequal world in which we live," Castro said. "As small, island nations and developing countries, we must survive in a world rattled by a global economic crisis," the Cuban leader added, calling for "political, economic and social integration."
On Sunday, Caribbean leaders urged the United States to lift the embargo it has placed on communist-ruled Cuba for more than half a century. The two countries have lacked full diplomatic relations since 1961. The CARICOM summit opened on the same day as an Ibero-American summit in the Mexican port city of Veracruz. Cuban authorities have yet to confirm their participation in that summit, which would be a first since Raul Castro took up the presidency in 2008.
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