HAVANA: Fidel Castro confirmed he had resigned from the top leadership of the Cuba Communist Party in an article published on Tuesday.

“Raul knew that I would not accept a formal role in the party today,” Castro said in an article on the Cubadebate.cu portal, referring to his brother Raul and his own absence from the party’s new Central Committee, elected on Monday.

Castro, 84, had served as the first secretary in the Central Committee of the party — which underpins the country’s Communist government — since the party’s creation in 1965.