Clinton, Castro Shake Hands at UN Encounter

Cuban President Fidel Castro spoke for the first time with his US counterpart Bill Clinton and shook his hand in a crush of UN dignitaries, officials said on Thursday.

Diplomats and other observers believed it was also the first time since Castro, 74, took power in 1959 that the Cuban leader had shaken the hand of an American president. This could not be officially confirmed.

"So far as I know it's a first," Wayne Smith, a Cuba expert and former senior US diplomat in Cuba, told Reuters of the Clinton-Castro encounter.

The chance meeting between the leaders of two nations separated by 40 years of enmity took place on Wednesday at the United Nations Millennium Summit.

Castro and Clinton had attended a lunch for the roughly 150 world leaders taking part in the summit and were making their way to a conference room for a group photograph when the encounter took place.

They found themselves pushed together at a choke-point in the crowd and "there was a handshake and an exchange of words," a UN source said. The White House confirmed that the handshake had taken place.

"As the president was preparing to leave the lunch, Castro approached him. They had a brief exchange of words. I would not characterise this as a substantive encounter," US National Security Council spokesman P J Crowley said when asked to confirm the report.

Asked if the encounter signalled a thaw in relations, Crowley said it did not change US concerns about Castro's government.

"It signifies that Fidel Castro used the opportunity of yesterday's lunch to greet the president but it doesn't change the concerns that we have about the Castro regime ," he said.

"It is the first time they have actually spoken," he added.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told reporters: "As I understand it, it was a chance encounter that Mr. Castro initiated.

"They talked for a couple of minutes and there was no substance. It was just a cordial conversation, but no substance, as I understand it," Albright said.

Cuban officials were not immediately available for comment. In Havana, Cuban state-run media gave blanket coverage to Castro's UN visit but did not refer to the handshake.

Chances to meet US presidents have been rare since Castro took power, although Clinton has in the past been in the same meeting room with the Cuban leader.

Castro met President Richard Nixon, who was Vice President at the time, during an unofficial visit to the United States in April 1959, just months after he took power.

Cuba-US relations have been hostile since then, with the Caribbean island taking a communist course that made it a close ally of the former Soviet Union for three decades. Washington has maintained a 38-year economic embargo on Cuba and the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

When Castro and President George Bush both attended the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, they applauded each other's speeches but never shook hands.

Despite acrimony between Washington and Havana, Castro has sometimes taken a sympathetic attitude toward Clinton and has never subjected him to attacks he reserves for right-wing US politicians.

"I once asked Castro what he thought of Clinton and he said: 'I have nothing against Clinton. He's a good boy. It's Congress'," said Ana Julia Jatar, a Cuba expert at the Inter-American Dialogue.

Despite the encounter, Castro won't get to go to Clinton's party. His name is not on the guest list to a glittering reception that Clinton is throwing on Thursday evening at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.





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