The Castro regime running Cuba opposes genuine change and a democratic transition on the communist island is unlikely to come "any time soon," US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday, dpa reported.
Fidel and Raul Castro do not want to see the decades-long US embargo on Cuba end because they will no longer have an excuse for their failures to bring prosperity to their people, Clinton said.
"It's my personal belief that the Castros don't want to see an end to the embargo and don't want to see normalization with us because they would then lose all of their excuses for what hasn't happened in Cuba for the past 50 years," she said during a speech at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
The Obama administration has sought to reach out to Cuba by holding higher level talks on a limited number of issues, but Clinton said Havana has not positively responded by reforming. The two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.
"Cuba should have democratically elected leaders and a chance to chart their own future, but unfortunately I don't see that happening while the Castros are still in charge," she said.
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