Raul Castro hails Obama's 'new chapter', reaffirms 'communist rule' in Cuba

Cuban President Raul Castro has praise the US President Barack Obama for "a new chapter," but reaffirmed that restored relations with the United States did not mean the end of Communist rule in Cuba.

Castro, who would attend Summit of Americas in Panama in 2015 to meet Obama, also warned that Cuba faced a "long and difficult struggle" before the US removed its economic embargo, the BBC reported.

US-Cuba relations have remained frozen since the early 1960s, when the US broke off diplomatic relations and imposed a trade embargo after Cuba's revolution.

Castro, who tried to keep Cubans' feet firmly on the ground as because the complete lifting of the US economic embargo is still to be met, praised Obama for his bravery in trying to reverse decades of hostilities between the two countries.

Speaking in the National Assembly in Havana, President Castro said that in the same way that they have never demanded that the United States change its political system, they will demand respect for theirs.

Announcing the normalisation of diplomatic and economic ties, President Obama said Washington's approach towards Cuba was "outdated.