HAVANA, Dec 2: Cuba’s communist interim leader Raul Castro, in a shift from the tack of his ailing brother Fidel Castro, on Saturday pushed for negotiations with the United States to end decades of tense ties.

“Of course, that is, as long as they accept that we are a country that does not tolerate any reduction of its independence, and based on the principles of equality, reciprocity, non-interference and mutual respect,” Raul Castro told troops at Cuba’s first military parade in a decade.

“Until that happens, after almost half a century, we are prepared to wait patiently for the moment when common sense takes root in the halls of power in Washington,” added Raul Castro.

Raul Castro has been filling in for his brother Fidel, 80, since Fidel Castro -- Cuba's leader since 1959 -- underwent intestinal surgery in July.

The policy of willingness to talk with the United States, if respected as an equal, is standing Cuban policy. But Fidel Castro has not reached out to the United States, much less publicly, on a regular basis.

And Raul Castro’s timing and mentioning the negotiating table -- as Cuba is consolidating its changing of the communist guard -- suggests some growing autonomy on his part.

His tone, however, did not reflect a change in Cuba’s defiant everyday anti-US rhetoric.

Raul Castro said the United States was `at a crossroads, with no way out’ in its war in Iraq, and that its `war on terror’ on a global level was `marching toward a humiliating defeat’. Cuba, Latin America’s only one-party communist government, and the United States do not have full diplomatic relations. They do have Interests Sections, a diplomatic office, in each other’s capital.

The United States has had en economic embargo on Cuba since 1962.

On Friday Vice-President Carlos Lage delivered a firm defence of Cuba’s one-party communist system, insisting it would outlive ailing leader Fidel Castro and challenging US calls for change.—AFP