Spain says Cuba's Castro committed to reform

HAVANA (Reuters) - Spain's foreign minister met with Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday and said the communist leader affirmed his commitment to economic reform and expressed his desire to continue improving relations with the United States.

Castro also promised to pay about $450 million in back payments to Spanish companies doing business on the cash-strapped Caribbean island, said Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Moratinos, speaking to reporters at the end of a two-day trip to the former Spanish colony, described wide-ranging talks on topics ranging from Cuba-European Union relations to improvements in Cuba's human rights.

Moratinos said Castro told him during a 2007 visit of his plans to reform Cuba's state-dominated economy and repeated his commitment to change on Monday.

"I have found in President Castro a commitment to reform, to advance the process of reform in the whole country, to improve the economic situation of Cuba," he said. "Today he reiterated his will to continue the process."

Since replacing his ailing older brother Fidel Castro as president last year, Raul Castro has initiated a handful of reforms aimed at making Cuba's economy more productive but has been criticized for moving too slowly.

He has made it clear his objective is to preserve the socialist state imposed after the 1959 Cuban revolution that put his brother in power for 49 years.

Moratinos said Castro had good words about U.S. President Barack Obama and was pleased at recent Obama-initiated talks on migration issues and the possible resumption of direct U.S-Cuba mail service broken off since 1963.

Obama also has eased the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, imposed to topple the Castro government, by lifting restrictions on travel and the sending of remittances to the island by Cuban Americans.

IMPROVE RELATIONS

"They hope to be able to improve ... relations with the United States," Moratinos said of the Cubans.

Moratinos was not returning home empty-handed.

He said Castro "had personally committed and given instructions" that Spanish companies awaiting payments for about $450 million in goods and services would be paid.

Cuba has frozen payments to many foreign companies because of a cash-crunch brought on by the global recession.

Moratinos said human rights were discussed "in general," and that Spain "always maintains a clear position in defense and promotion of human rights."

Spain takes over the revolving presidency of the European Union in January and Moratinos said its "principal objective" will be moving the 27-nation bloc away from a 1996 resolution that conditioned dialogue with Cuba on its "transition to a multi-party democracy."

The one-party Cuban state considers the resolution unacceptable.

Moratinos said he had not met with any government opponents during his visit because his purpose was "to strengthen bilateral relations" with Cuba.

(Reporting by Esteban Israel, Rosa Tania Valdes and Jeff Franks; editing by Jeff Franks and Bill Trott)