Chavez makes first Cuba visit since Raul Castro became president

HAVANA (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday made his first visit to Cuba since the presidency passed from Fidel Castro to his younger brother Raul last month.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma reported that Chavez was greeted Friday night by President Raul Castro. Cuba and Venezuela are key political and economic allies and Chavez is a close friend of the ailing 81-year-old Fidel.

Chavez made the unannounced visit on his way home from a summit in the Dominican Republic, where he and the presidents of Colombia and Ecuador agreed to end a bitter dispute over a Colombian cross-border raid on rebels in Ecuadorean territory.

The Cuban government did not release an agenda of Chavez's visit and state media carried no other details. Chavez was accompanied by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.

Chavez has visited Fidel Castro several times since he stepped aside provisionally in mid-2006 after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery. Fidel permanently resigned from the presidency on Feb. 19, and Cuba's parliament elected his 76-year-old brother Raul to replace him on Feb. 24.

Raul Castro's government has remained silent on the dispute between the three Andean countries that began when Colombia carried out a March 1 commando raid across the border in Ecuador that killed 25 people including a senior commander of Colombia's largest rebel group.

Fidel Castro welcomed the resolution of the dispute reached at the summit, saying in a Friday statement that the only loser was U.S. "imperialism."

Noting that no U.S. diplomats were present at the gathering, Castro wrote that "peace was immediately sealed, along with the knowledge that we are not obligated to wage war among nations that share solid ties of brotherhood."