Russian leader meets Fidel Castro in Cuba

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By Patrick Markey

HAVANA (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Friday as Moscow rebuilt ties with its Cold War ally during a trip to expand its political and economic reach in Latin America.

The talk with Castro came at the end of Medvedev's tour of the region, which has been seen as an attempt by Russia to taunt Washington in its traditional backyard while seeking out trade, energy and military deals.

Medvedev had travelled from Venezuela, where he and anti-U.S. leader President Hugo Chavez conducted joint naval exercises as tensions between Moscow and Washington simmer over U.S. missile defence in Europe and Russia's war with Georgia.

No photographs or television images were immediately available of Castro's meeting with Medvedev, but the two men talked for more than an hour, the Kremlin said.

"I explained our patient and pacifist position while making clear our defensive capability," Fidel Castro said in an essay posted on a government website (www.cubadebate.cu) late on Friday. "No country understands this policy better than Russia, which is constantly threatened by the same enemy of peace."

Castro said China, Russia and OPEC-member Venezuela are now the three pillars of trade for Cuba.

Moscow was Havana's main benefactor during the Cold War but the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union battered Cuba's economy. Ties soured further after then-President Vladimir Putin closed Russia's Lourdes intelligence base on the island in 2001.

Fidel Castro, 82, who ruled Cuba for 49 years before his brother Raul became president in February, has not been seen in public since undergoing surgery in July 2006. But he writes regular newspaper columns and meets with foreign leaders.

U.S. officials say they have been monitoring Moscow's moves in Latin America but do not consider them threatening.

Raul Castro could visit Russia next year and Moscow has called on Washington to end its economic embargo on the Caribbean island imposed in 1962, three years after Fidel came to power in an armed revolution.

(Additional reporting by Denis Dyomkin in Moscow, editing by Anthony Boadle)

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