Chavez makes first Cuba visit since Raul Castro became president

HAVANA: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made his first visit to Cuba since the presidency passed from Fidel Castro to his younger brother Raul, state television reported Saturday.

Broadcast footage showed Raul greeting Chavez when he arrived in Havana on Friday night along with Yolanda Pulecio, the mother of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, and Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba.

The two women have conducted an international campaign for the release of Betancourt, who is the highest-profile hostage held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the rebel group known as the FARC.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told reporters that Chavez had met with Raul Castro. But he did not mention that the women had accompanied the Venezuelan president to Cuba and it was unclear if they were at the meeting.

Cuba and Venezuela are key political and economic allies and Chavez is a close friend of the ailing 81-year-old Fidel Castro.

Chavez made the unannounced visit on his way home from a summit in the Dominican Republic, where he and the presidents of Colombia and Ecuador agreed to end a bitter dispute over a Colombian cross-border raid on rebels in Ecuadorean territory.

Before the dispute ended, Chavez invited Pulecio into the gathering of Latin American presidents in Santo Domingo and urged Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to allow a multinational group into Colombia to get out some of the FARC's hostages. Uribe rejected the idea.

The Cuban government did not release an agenda of Chavez's visit, and state media carried no other details. He was accompanied by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.

Chavez has visited Fidel Castro several times since he stepped aside provisionally in mid-2006 after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery. Fidel permanently resigned from the presidency on Feb. 19, and Cuba's parliament elected his 76-year-old brother Raul to replace him on Feb. 24.

Raul Castro's government has remained silent on the dispute between the three Andean countries that began when Colombia carried out a March 1 commando raid across the border in Ecuador that killed 25 people including a senior commander of the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group.

Fidel Castro welcomed the resolution of the dispute reached at the summit, saying in a Friday statement that the only loser was U.S. "imperialism."

Noting that no U.S. diplomats were present at the gathering, Castro wrote that "peace was immediately sealed, along with the knowledge that we are not obligated to wage war among nations that share solid ties of brotherhood."

Also Saturday, the European Union's top development aid official said he would work to persuade EU members to drop remaining diplomatic sanctions against Cuba.

"I think the necessary conditions exist to open a new era in relations," Louis Michel said during a news conference after meeting with several top officials.

Imposed in 2003 after the island arrested 75 dissidents, the sanctions were suspended after two years but are still subject to periodic review and potential reinstatement. Cuba wants them lifted entirely.

Sixteen of those arrested have since been released on medical parole and another four were freed into exile in Spain last month.