HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba’s acting president, Raul Castro, departing from his brother’s confrontational approach to their arch-enemy the United States, said this weekend he was open for talks with Washington.

The offer made on Saturday was the most direct overture to the United States by Fidel Castro’s designated successor, who is running Cuba in the absence of its ailing leader.

Experts on Cuba said the Western hemisphere’s only communist country needs to get the United States to lift sanctions enforced since 1962 if it wants to revitalize its battered economy.

At a military parade where Cuba rolled out Soviet-era tanks and fighter jets, Raul Castro railed at increased hostility by the Bush administration and condemned the war in Iraq

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