Cuba and Mexico envoys to return

The spat followed Castro's scathing attack on Mexico

Cuba and Mexico have agreed to return their respective ambassadors following talks by their two foreign ministers.

Mexico withdrew its ambassador and expelled Cuba's envoy in May, after Cuban President Fidel Castro accused it of being little more than a US lackey.

At a joint press conference, the two ministers said the ambassadors would be reinstated next Saturday.

Our correspondent in Havana said much seems forgiven, and the meeting's theme was one of historical friendship.

Although the countries never formally broke off ties, Cuba at one point described relations with its once strongest ally as the worst in a century.

Mexico recalled its ambassador after President Castro launched a scathing May Day attack on countries, including Mexico, which had backed a UN censure of Cuba's human rights record.

Reconciliation

The Mexican authorities were also angered by what they saw as interference in Mexico's internal affairs.

They said Cuban Communist Party Members were holding unauthorised meetings in Mexico and accused Mr Fox's government of trying to discredit the left-leaning Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

But after talks in the Cuban capital, Mexico's foreign minister Luis Ernesto Derbez and his Cuban counterpart Felipe Perez Roque said they were back on the road of reconciliation.

"There can be differences among friends on certain issues, but these differences can be talked out," said Mr Derbez. "What we are doing now is working on all this to be able to move forward on the same road."

As if to press home the theme of friendship, the Cuban minister took the unusual step of driving his Mexican counterpart to the airport himself, in his Lada, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs reported.