Cuba's Castros meet with Venezuela's top officials

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro speaks during a meeting with Cuban and foreign intellectuals visiting Havana's international book fair February 15, 2011. (Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)

Cuban leader Raul Castro and his brother and predecessor Fidel Castro met here on Sunday with top Venezuelan officials visiting the Caribbean island country, the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper Granma said Monday.

The leaders, including Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro, discussed "the successful outcome" and "promising perspectives" of a recent gathering in Venezuela's capital Caracas of envoys from member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) and its energy bloc Petrocaribe.

The "warm" and "fraternal" meeting also served to assess "other aspects of the strategic alliance between" Cuba and Venezuela, Granma stressed.

The meeting took place as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez continues to recover in Havana from cancer surgery.

Maduro said Venezuelans were "deeply" grateful for the care and attention Chavez has received from his medical team of Cuban doctors.

The Venezuelan delegation also expressed its gratitude to the Cuban government for declaring recently that "any attack against Venezuela will be considered an attack against our homeland."

The statement was made by Cuban Vice President Miguel Diaz- Canel, when he attended a mass rally last Thursday in Caracas in support of Chavez's presidency, which has come under fire from political opponents who claim his absence and inability to take office on Jan. 10 throws his administration into question.

Accompanying Maduro at the meeting were Venezuelan National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, Oil and Mining Minister Rafael Ramirez, and Attorney General Cilia Flores.

The latest official report on Chavez's condition, announced on Sunday, said his recovery was evolving "favorably," though he continues to have difficulty breathing following a lung infection contracted after the Dec. 11 operation, his fourth surgery since first being diagnosed with cancer in 2011.