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President Obama said Friday he is seeking "a new beginning" in U.S. relations with Cuba.

the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba."

Obama said that "decades of mistrust" must be overcome, but noted that he has already loosened restrictions that limited Americans from traveling to visit relatives in Cuba and from sending money to them. Obama lifted all restrictions Monday on the ability of individuals to visit relatives in Cuba, as well as to send them remittances.

President Barack Obama has said the US seeks a "new beginning" with Cuba and an "equal partnership" with all the nations of the Americas.

Mr Obama was addressing Latin American and Caribbean leaders at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. The summit follows a thaw in US-Cuban relations. Cuba is not at the summit.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed an offer for talks from Cuban President Raul Castro, saying the old US policy had failed. Mr Castro said on Thursday that he was ready to talk about "everything" with the US, including human rights, political prisoners and freedom of the press. His comments came after the US eased its long-standing embargo of the communist nation, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that US policy towards Cuba has failed, welcoming an offer to talk from the Cuban president.

She said the US was "taking a serious look" at how to respond to President Raul Castro's comments, which she called an "overture". Mr Castro had said he was ready for discussions covering human rights, political prisoners and press freedom. The US passed a law this week easing restrictions on Cuban Americans.

The move will allow Cuban Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send money home more easily.

The Organisation of American States tonight lifted Cuba's half-century-old suspension in a dramatic decision to bring Havana back into Latin America's diplomatic fold.The pan-regional body rebuffed the United States, which lobbied against the move, and revoked a 1962 cold war measure which had marked the communist island as a pariah.

Cuba said it had no interest in rejoining the OAS, which Fidel Castro this week called a "Trojan horse" for US interests, but the opening of the door was a diplomatic victory for Havana and exposed Washington's isolation.

Much of Latin America once considered Castro an anachronistic despot but since the 1990s the "maximum commandante" has won respect as an elder statesman and symbol of Latin American nationalism. Only the US still lacks diplomatic relations with the island.

the author relates in another book, Bush at War, that during a meeting of the U.S. National Security Council, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld proposed, with the consent of Vice President Cheney, to mount a massive attack on Cuba. Woodward adds that Bush not only agreed with the proposal but also asked for a detailed plan to be presented as fast as possible. "It was one of the most dangerous moments our country has gone through since the 1962 missile crisis," Raúl affirmed.

That situation led to an extraordinary plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party on July 15, 2003, and to the decision to increase and speed up measures aimed at strengthening the country’s defense in every aspect, based on a renewed, rational and realistic approach. Three years later, on July 1, 2006, the Fifth Plenum confirmed the results obtained and ratified and improved the strategy charted.

US President Barack Obama has approved measures that will allow Cuban Americans to travel more freely to Cuba, his spokesman has said. Cuban-Americans will also be allowed to send more money to relatives in Cuba.

"The president has directed the secretaries of state, treasury and commerce to carry out the actions necessary to lift all restrictions on the ability of individuals to visit family members in Cuba and to send them remittances," said Mr Gibbs.

Restrictions would also be lifted on US telecommunications companies applying for licences to operate in Cuba, Mr Gibbs added.

Raul Castro has held talks with members of Congress in his first face-to-face meeting with US politicians since he became president last year.

Barack Obama is expected to ease some of the travel and economic restrictions imposed on Cuba nearly 50 years ago.

Last week, a bipartisan group of US senators introduced a bill that would allow all US citizens to travel freely to Cuba for the first time since 1962. Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan said the policy had "failed for 50 years", adding that he believed it would win enough votes in the US Congress to pass.