Cuba's Castro holds long meeting with U.S. senator

CNN December 5, 1998 Cuba's Castro holds long meeting with U.S. senator

                  HAVANA, Dec 5 (Reuters) -- Cuban President Fidel Castro held a long
                  meeting with a U.S. senator who has called for an easing of the trade
                  embargo against Cuba to allow food and medicine sales to the
                  communist-ruled island, diplomats said Saturday.

                  They said the meeting between the Cuban leader and Sen. Christopher
                  Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut, started with dinner Friday evening and
                  lasted well into the early hours of Saturday morning, more than six hours in
                  all.

                  No details of the talks were immediately made public but diplomats said the
                  two were certain to have discussed the ongoing debate in the United States
                  about the purpose and effectiveness of the long-standing U.S. embargo
                  against Cuba.

                  Earlier this year, Dodd, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
                  Committee, was the co-sponsor of a bill in the U.S. Congress that proposed
                  to ease the embargo to allow sales on humanitarian grounds of U.S. food
                  and medicines to Cuba.

                  The bill did not pass because of opposition from Cuban- American
                  legislators but it was widely expected to be revived in the next Congress
                  session.

                  Dodd is also known to back a recent proposal by a number of former
                  high-ranking administration officials and current senators to create a
                  bipartisan commission to review U.S. government policy toward Cuba.

                  U.S.-Cuban relations have been characterised by hostility almost since
                  shortly after the 1959 revolution led by Castro that toppled right-wing
                  dictator Fulgencio Batista and ushered in one-party communist rule on the
                  island.

                  Dodd arrived in Havana on Wednesday on a fact-finding visit and has so far
                  met Cuba's National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon, Economy
                  Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez and Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina.

He also visited a farmers's market in Havana, where he chatted with
shoppers.