Havana  - Cuban President Raul Castro on Friday expressed his willingness to open direct talks with the incoming administration of US president-elect Barack Obama.

"We are ready to do it when they decide, directly, without intermediaries," Castro said in an interview broadcast on state television.

"We are not in a hurry, we are not desperate," he said. "Isn't it amazing? With the Cuban temperament, we have learned to be patient. We have patience, and we have demonstrated it."

Castro said such a dialogue should occur "in conditions of equality, without the slightest shadow over our sovereignty - peer to peer."

"The era of unilateral gestures is over," he said, adding that Cuba would not accept "carrot-and-stick diplomacy."

"That is past, it was a different stage," he said. "This is our position, and we will talk when they want to talk."