Ecuador's President will ask Obama to lift Cuban embargo

CUBA: Visiting Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said Saturday he plans to ask incoming US president Barack Obama to lift the US economic embargo of Cuba.

Correa, who joined the ongoing celebrations of Cuba's 50-year communist revolution, said he would likely meet Obama at the next Latin American summit in April.

"We'll talk at that summit about signs of a significant change in US behavior at least toward the (Latin American) region, and ask for the release of five Cuban prisoners or the lifting of that absurd, five-decade blockade of Cuba," Correa said in a radio interview. Correa had asked for the US to lift its Cuba embargo on Thursday, when he celebrated Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro's triumphant entrance in Havana in 1959 at Ernesto "Che" Guevara's tomb in Santa Clara.

Havana, Sunday, AFP