HAVANA, March 5 (Reuters) - Cuba's Foreign Ministry, rejecting a call for political change on the island from U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, said Thursday Albright should try instead to change U.S. policy towards Cuba.
Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said the change Cuba wanted to see from Washington was an end to the 36-year-old U.S. economic embargo against the Caribbean island.
"The only possible change is to eliminate this blockade,'' Gonzalez told a weekly news briefing in Havana.
He was asked to comment on a recent statement by Albright in which she repeated the U.S. government's desire to see communist-ruled Cuba make a "transition to democracy.''
Gonzalez replied: "This lady should make a transition in her thinking and dedicate herself to convincing the (U.S.) administration and Congress that the blockade is a failure and should be eliminated.''
He said that while right-wing U.S. legislators and "extremist'' Cuban exile groups supported the embargo on Cuba, more and more groups and personalities in the United States were agreeing that it had failed in its objectives.
"That perception is gaining strength inside the U.S.,'' Gonzalez said. "As far as we're concerned, the blockade must be eliminated completely.''
Gonzalez said Cuba welcomed draft legislation proposed by a group of U.S. lawmakers to ease the embargo by allowing the sale of food and medicine to Cuba for humanitarian reasons. This initiative "deserves our respect,'' he said.
He declined to comment on an announcement by Canada last week that it would accept 19 political prisoners being freed and expelled by Cuba.
Gonzalez was also asked about four detained leading political dissidents -- Vladimir Roca, Felix Bonne, Rene Gomez and Marta Beatriz Roque -- who were not among around 300 prisoners Cuba's government said were freed in February in response to an appeal for clemency made by Pope John Paul II.
The European Union called for the release of the four, who have been in custody since July, in a statement last month welcoming the prisoner pardons.
Asked whether a trial date had been set for the four dissidents, Gonzalez said: "The Foreign Ministry deals with foreign policy, not with rogues.'' No formal charges have been announced against the four. REUTERS
01:53 03-06-98