By Pascal Fletcher,

HAVANA — Cuban President Fidel Castro gave a cautious welcome Friday to an expected move by President Clinton to ease U.S. policy toward the island.

"They (the measures) seem positive to us," Castro told the CNN television network in Havana.

But the Cuban president added he would need to see the full details of the U.S. announcement before making a fuller analysis.

He was reacting to news from Washington that Clinton was expected to announce Friday a renewal of direct flights from the United States to Cuba, allow some family remittances and ease restrictions on sales of U.S. medicines to the island.

According to a senior U.S. official, Clinton was also expected to try to persuade Congress to allow food sales to Cuba, in what would be a significant easing of the 36-year-old U.S. economic embargo against the island.

Castro said from what he had heard so far of the expected U.S. measures, they could be "helpful and conducive to a better climate" of relations.

He said he trusted relations between Cuba and the U.S. could be improved and added: "We are willing to do whatever we can". He did not elaborate.

In contrast to Castro, Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina was more negative about the expected U.S. moves. Speaking in Geneva, Robaina said they were "crumbs" and part of a political maneuver that Havana could not accept.

"I think this is a cosmetic operation. It does not go to the heart of the problem. There is much more that they have to do," he said.

Robaina, who spoke after Castro's comments, made his remarks to journalists after telling the United Nations Human Rights Commission that Havana demanded a total lifting of the U.S. embargo.

"For the Cuban people, the blockade has to be lifted, and not just eased ... When humanitarian help appears with conditions, with blackmail, it is a political maneuver which we are not prepared to accept," he told reporters.

In Havana, Castro's comments were broadcast only by CNN, which can generally be seen in the Cuban capital only in tourist hotels or by hard-currency subscribers like diplomats or businessmen.

It was not immediately clear why the 71-year-old Cuban president, who frequently criticizes U.S. "imperialist" domination of the world's mass media, chose a U.S. network rather than Cuban state television to give his initial reaction.

But foreign diplomats in Havana suggested he wanted to reach the U.S. public as quickly as possible.

Clinton's move will remove some sanctions imposed by the U.S. administration after the shooting down by Havana February 24, 1996 of two small U.S. planes piloted by Cuban-Americans.

The incident, in which the four crew were killed, sparked a major flare-up in U.S.-Cuban relations, which have remained generally tense since.

But apparently as a result of a historic visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul in January, fact-finding visits to the island by some U.S. business executives and political figures have increased in the last few weeks.

So has public debate in the United States over policy toward Cuba.

Foreign diplomats in Havana said the latest U.S. measures appeared to be a response to a call from the pope for Cuba to open up to the world and the world to open up to Cuba.

Last month, Cuban authorities said they were releasing around 300 prisoners, some of them political detainees, in reply to an appeal for clemency made by the pontiff.

The reauthorization by Washington of direct flights and allowing limited cash remittances would be a boost to Cuba's hard-pressed population. Most of the country's 11 million people are still finding it difficult to make ends meet because of low salaries and continuing shortages of essential goods.

Even when family remittances were banned, some economists estimated that up to $800 million or more of hard currency funds were finding their way to the island each year, sent by Cuban exiles to their families.

© Reuters Ltd.