HAVANA -- (AP) -- Six members of the U.S. congress met with Cuban President Fidel Castro before sitting down later in the day for talks with a dozen members of the political opposition.

 ``We have to work together, we have to put the Cold War behind us,'' Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said at the end of the sessions Monday that gave the visiting Congressional delegation a view of both ends of Cuban political spectrum.

 Among the dissident group was well-known human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, at its hotel.

 The U.S. lawmakers arrived in Cuba on Thursday, accompanied by Sally Grooms Cowal, president of the Cuba Policy Foundation, a Washington-based anti-embargo group, and Cuba specialist Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute, a public policy organization in Arlington, Va.

 Delahunt traveled with Reps. Jo Ann Emerson, a Republican from Missouri, and Democrats Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Vic Snyder of Arkansas, William Clay of Missouri and Hilda Solis of California.

                                    © 2002