July 6 (Reuters) – Cuba’s Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro has said that he is open to negotiating with U.S. President Donald Trump, according to an interview published by USA Today on Monday with the grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro.
“I can negotiate with anyone designated by the U.S.,” Rodriguez Castro told USA Today during interviews over the course of two days in June in Havana. “If given the opportunity, (of course with) Trump.”
He also said that Cuba was willing, under the right conditions, to release “people deemed political prisoners”.
In May, the United States announced murder charges against Raul Castro.
The indictment marked a new low in relations between the longtime Cold War rivals and came as Trump is pushing for regime change in Cuba, where Castro’s communists have been in charge since his late brother Fidel Castro led a revolution in 1959.
Also in May, Cuba released the names of thousands of prisoners granted freedom in a decree issued the previous month as the government held negotiations with the U.S. on a range of disputes including political prisoners.
The April decree granted “full and definitive pardon” to an extensive list of prisoners, describing the move as a “humanitarian and sovereign gesture.”
(Reporting by Chandni Shah and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
