Chavez visits Fidel, Raul Castro in first Cuba trip since power transfer

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez paid a visit to his close friend Fidel Castro on Saturday, making his first trip to Cuba since the ailing 81-year-old was replaced as president by his younger brother Raul.

"I talked for a long time with Chavez today," the elder Castro said in a statement distributed by the Foreign Ministry.

In the unannounced trip after Friday's summit of Latin American leaders in the Dominican Republic, Chavez also met with Raul Castro, Cuban officials said.

Before returning to Venezuela on Saturday, Chavez told Cuban state television than he found Fidel "happy, splendid and full of ideas."

Castro wrote that the Venezuelan president was "euphoric from that battle for peace and his role" at the summit, where Andean leaders agreed to end a bitter dispute over a Colombian raid on rebels in Ecuadorean territory.

He also joked that Chavez initially didn't want to see him because he didn't want to risk giving him the flu.

"Pure pretext so as not be submitted to my habitual questioning," he wrote. "'Why even take vitamin C?' I said to tell him. 'And aren't all the heads of state that were in the warm and happy final Rio Group meeting going to get sick as well?'"

The statement did not mention Yolanda Pulecio, the mother of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, and Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, who arrived in Cuba Friday night with Chavez. State television broadcast footage of Raul Castro, in his military uniform, greeting the three at the airport.

Pulecio and Cordoba have conducted an international campaign seeking the release of Betancourt, the highest-profile hostage held by guerrillas belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Pulecio said the resolution of the Andean crisis and the recent handover of several other hostages gave her hope that her daughter will eventually be released.

Betancourt, who appeared thin and frail in videos that surfaced in late 2007, is "the next one they have to free," she told Cuban state TV.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told reporters earlier that Chavez had met with Raul Castro. But he did not mention Pulecio or Cordoba, and it was unknown if they were at the meeting.

Cuba and Venezuela are key political and economic allies, and Chavez is a close friend of Fidel Castro.

Chavez has visited Fidel Castro several times since he stepped aside provisionally in mid-2006 after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery. Fidel permanently resigned from the presidency on Feb. 19, and Cuba's parliament elected 76-year-old Raul to replace him on Feb. 24.

Raul's government has remained silent on the dispute between the three Andean countries, which began when Colombia carried out a March 1 commando raid across the border in Ecuador that killed 25 people including a senior FARC commander.

But Fidel welcomed the resolution of the dispute reached at the summit, saying in a Friday statement that the only loser was U.S. "imperialism."

Noting that no U.S. diplomats were present at the gathering, Castro wrote that "peace was immediately sealed, along with the knowledge that we are not obligated to wage war among nations that share solid ties of brotherhood."

Also Saturday, the European Union's top development aid official said he would work to persuade EU members to drop remaining diplomatic sanctions against Cuba.

"I think the necessary conditions exist to open a new era in relations," Louis Michel said during a news conference after meeting with several top officials.

Imposed in 2003 after the island arrested 75 dissidents, the EU sanctions were suspended after two years but are still subject to periodic review and potential reinstatement. Cuba wants them lifted entirely.

Sixteen of those arrested have since been released on medical parole and another four were freed into exile in Spain last month.