Cuba and the European Union (EU) started official conversations Friday aimed at reactivating bilateral relations after one and a half years of diplomatic freeze.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez met EU's development chief Louis Michel in Havana.

"We receive him as a friend and representative of the bloc of countries of the European Union, with which we hold relations we want to improve and develop," said Perez.

Michel, the most senior EU official to visit Cuba after the EU lifted diplomatic sanctions on Cuba in January, is on his Caribbean tour which also includes visits to Jamaica and Haiti.

"My presence here is proof of the European Union's desire to deepen its ties with Cuba and reopen political dialogue so that we can have a real process of political, economic and cultural cooperation," Michel said.

The EU commissioner said his talks with the Cuban authorities included human rights issues and renewed cooperation between the bloc and Cuba.

In early 2003, Havana put 75 dissidents in jail, and later executed three who were convicted of trying to hijack a ferry to the United States.

The move led to widespread criticism on Cuban authorities from abroad, and one of the consequences was the EU's suspending high-level contacts with the Caribbean country.

In response, the Cuban government froze diplomatic contacts with Brussels, accusing the EU of yielding to pressure from the United States.

At the request of Spain's Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the EU lifted the diplomatic sanctions on Cuba in January.

Source: Xinhua