Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro suggested yesterday he might give up his formal leadership posts.
"My elemental duty is not to hold on to positions and less to obstruct the path of younger people," the 81-year-old Castro said in a letter read on Cuban state television.
It is the first time that Castro, who has not been seen in public for 16 months, has spoken of his possible retirement since he fell ill.
Castro, who took power in a 1959 revolution, handed over temporarily to his brother Raul Castro in July 2006 after undergoing stomach surgery for an undisclosed illness.
Cuba's National Assembly could formalise Castro's retirement as head of state when it approves the members of the executive Council of State at its new session in March.
Castro said his duty is "to contribute experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional times that I have lived through".
His comments at the end of the letter read out on a daily current affairs programme on television suggested Castro would not resume office but continue in the role of elder statesman advising the government on key issues.
Castro is president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers, and first secretary of the ruling Communist Party.
Since March this year, Castro has written dozens of newspaper columns denouncing the US government over the war in Iraq and its policies on climate change and the use of food crops as biofuels.