U.S. President George W. Bush said on Friday that Cuba had replaced one dictator with another and vowed to maintain hard-line policies against the communist-ruled island until it begins a democratic transition.
Mr. Bush insisted that Fidel Castro, despite having stepped aside last month and turned over the presidency to his brother Raul, "is still influencing events from behind the scenes."
Speaking after a White House meeting with Cuban dissidents, he made clear he thought his critics had been wrong to see the ailing Cuban leader's retirement as a chance to reconsider a decades-old U.S. trade embargo.
"That sentiment is exactly backward," Mr. Bush told reporters. "To improve relations, what needs to change is not the United States. What needs to change is Cuba.
The photo above shows President Bush meeting with Miguel Sigler Amaya (center), a former Cuban political prisoner and founder of Movimiento Independiente Opcion Alternativa (Independent Movement for an Alternative Option), and his wife Josefa Lopez Pena (left), founding member of Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) in the Oval Office on Friday, March 7, 2008. (Photo credit: AP Photo, Charles Dharapak.)
