Hugo Chavez says Venezuela-U.S. relations will improve

[Jimmy2]

BY FRANCES ROBLES

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- Closer relations between Venezuela and the United States are no doubt coming soon, President Hugo Chávez said Saturday, adding that the two countries may soon return each other's ambassadors to their posts.

Chávez made the statement after a dozen South American leaders met with President Barack Obama Saturday morning at the Fifth Summit of the Americas. Chávez called the meeting ``extraordinary.''

''I feel great optimism and the best of good will to advance. We have started off on the right foot,'' Chávez said in a statement released by his office, which noted that he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed renewing each other's ambassadors.

The ambassadors were yanked last year in a diplomatic flap that started in Bolivia.

''It's time to have a true start of a new history, for there to be balance, that there's an end to the mechanisms of domination,'' Chávez said.

The dozen leaders who met with Obama used the opportunity to speak out against the U.S. embargo against Cuba and past American interventions in the region, according to a senior U.S. administration official.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet chaired Obama's one hour and 15 minute meeting with the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

The U.S. government official who briefed reporters about the meeting said the session was cordial, had ''no tension'' and a good bit of ``frank discussion.''

''I'm very grateful for the opportunity to meet with my colleagues from the south and participate in the meeting,'' Obama said, according to a White House transcript. ``UNASUR is doing some excellent work in their efforts in the region on things like energy and security. I have a lot to learn and I very much look forward to listening and figuring out how we can work together more effectively.''

Cuba took up about 20 percent of the meeting's time, as each of the South American leaders urged Obama to lift the U.S. trade embargo.

Obama countered that each of the presidents present was elected democratically -- so they should do their part to ensure that democracy and rule of law are priorities in Cuba, too.

Obama ''said that everything that we do in relation to Cuba is informed by a real concern for democracy,'' said the senior administration official. ``And he made the point that the members of UNASUR are all democratically elected, and that democracy and the rule of law for the people of Cuba, in his view, is or should be a concern for them -- that is, the other leaders, as well.''

''I think it's clear that, at least speaking of this meeting this morning ... I think all of the presidents there would like to see us move expeditiously to lift the embargo,'' the administration official said.

None of the presidents came forward with any concrete messages from Havana, he said -- nor has there been a request for any country to serve as a mediator. ''We live in a hemisphere of democracies, and for many of the countries, including many of the countries at the table this morning -- although he did not say it this way, I'm not putting words in the President's mouth -- they've lived through periods of dictatorship themselves and have a real understanding of what it means not to have a free press and open discussion and political parties and what have you,'' the official said.

``And that experience, perhaps, should in some way be reflected in how they deal with another dictatorship.''

Several of the presidents who spoke Saturday continued the previous night's opening theme of railing against the history of U.S. interventions in Latin America.

Chávez, known for waxing on for hours, gave an uncharacteristically brief speech of just a few minutes.

The U.S. official said Obama urged looking toward the future rather than the past.

''The president made the point that he is not here to argue history,'' the official said. ``He said we need to understand the past, have to move ahead, very forward-looking. It's also helpful for Latin America to avoid the temptation, the easy temptation, of blaming anything that goes wrong or problems that exist on the United States.