RIO DE JANEIRO -- Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel, whose country has significantly improved ties with Cuba in recent months, said he plans to meet with Cuban dissidents on his next trip to Havana later this year.

``I'll visit the dissidents, as an expression of our intention of engaging in a democratic dialogue [with everybody],'' Rangel said in an interview. ``And I wish the United States would take a similar position of talking with all Cubans, including the government.''

Rangel, who is attending a summit of 44 European and Latin American leaders in Rio, rejected criticism by opponents of Cuban President Fidel Castro that Venezuela has become a key supporter of the Cuban government. Venezuela recently voted in support of Cuba at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, and has offered to sell oil to the island at subsidized prices.

``Sure, there is a change'' in Venezuela's policy toward Cuba since President Hugo Chavez took office earlier this year, he said. ``It is a change toward a policy of dialogue and an absolute normalization of relations with Cuba.''

But he said this does not mean that Venezuela will fail to press for a democratization of the island. He said he is likely to meet the Cuban dissidents ``on my next trip to Havana'' -- at the latest during the Ibero-American Summit scheduled to take place there in November. He did not specify which of the various opposition groups in Havana he intends to meet with, but said he would have ``no problem'' visiting Elizardo Sanchez, one of the leading opposition activists.