Communist Cuba’s President Raul Castro has offered to talk directly “without intermediaries” and on equal terms with incoming US president Barack Obama, who has said he would consider direct dialogue.

“A gesture for a gesture. We are ready to do it whenever it may be, whenever they may decide, without intermediaries, directly, but we are in no rush, we are not desperate,” Castro said on state television on Friday, a day after Cuba marked the 50th anniversary of its revolution.

After years of economic embargo and hardline US efforts to isolate the island, Havana now faces rare potential for change with Obama, who has voiced willingness to engage world leaders.

Obama, who takes office January 20, could “do a great deal, could take positive steps,” said Castro, 77, adding he did not expect him to change overall hostile US policy. “But I hope I am wrong about that,” the Cuban president said.

“A president is coming in who has raised a lot of expectations in many parts of the world, hopes that are too high, I think.” But Castro allowed that a new US president “may be able to make more just ideas move forward.”

The Cuban president repeated his argument that US “carrot and stick diplomacy” was a dead end.